The Chancellor’s Blue & Gold Scholarship (www.fao.ucla.edu/blueandgold/) was established in 1998
to recognize and reward the academic achievements of first-year undergraduates from under-represented Los Angeles county high schools and transfer students from the county’s community colleges. Since then, more than 350 students have attended UCLA through Blue & Gold scholarships. Scholars are chosen based on academic merit through UCLA's Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools, an outreach initiative that grants awards between $1,000 and $5,000 annually for up to four years. The program requires scholarship recipients to complete 20 hours of community service per year by participating in outreach activities at Los Angeles county high schools and community colleges.

Making a difference
Without any clear resolution in sight to the decline in California's funding of higher education, UC schools will continue to have to shoulder the burden themselves and work to sustain long-term fund development campaigns. Looking to private contributions from corporate and institutional donors, alumni and others, UCLA is actively committed to helping students secure financial support for their education. To be effective, such fund development efforts must be understood as ongoing campaigns, conceived with the future in mind, yet yielding results for today.

UCLA's Student Affairs organization, which oversees the University's Financial Aid Office and manages the Regents and Blue and Gold Scholarship Programs, provides support for numerous other student-centered activities and interests.

s Sacramento works to find solutions for California's multi-billion dollar budget deficit, state funding for public services and institutions has dramatically and conspicuously declined. The significant decrease in state funding to the University of California system overall has ultimately forced a sharp rise in student fees, including a sizable increase in fees for graduate students, who play a critical role towards sustaining the UC's high level of research productivity. The increase in fees is yet another burden for students from middle and low- income families who look to public universities, such as UCLA, to provide financially accessible opportunities for higher education.

UCLA itself has seen a severe drop in funding from Sacramento, which in 1990 contributed 30 percent of UCLA's overall funding, compared to 17 percent in 2004. Recognizing the long-term impact this fiscal crisis will have on students, University officials are working to increase the financial support they make available to both undergraduate and graduate students, and have established an ambitious fund development campaign to ease the financial strain of attending UCLA.

Graduate Student Support
In June 2004 Chancellor Albert Carnesale launched the Ensuring Academic Excellence (EAE) initiative, a five-year effort aimed at generating $250 million in private commitments specifically for the recruitment and retention of high academic achieving graduate students and faculty. The initiative includes $150 million to fund graduate fellowships and scholarships at the UCLA College and UCLA’s 11 professional schools. As of January 2005, $61.5 million had been pledged.
UCLA's standing as one of the nation's most valued and respected research universities has been determined in large measure by the high academic achievements of its graduate students. As one of the nation's leading resources of intellectual capital, UCLA and its graduates help drive a robust economy by making contributions to advances in health care and science, K-12 education and a range of other fields. Graduate students play a critical role in conducting research and recruiting and retaining top faculty, while also enhancing the quality of undergraduate education through instruction as teaching assistants. Seventy percent of UCLA Ph.D. degree-holders stay in the