Sacramento State’s College Assistance Migrant Program provided updates about California State University’s financial aid, applications and deadlines in a conference for secondary school advisers on Friday.

The conference targeted advisers from the migrant education areas.

CAMP helps students who come from migrant families and farming backgrounds. The program helps students transition from high school to college and apply to Sac State.

Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez, who used to work in migrant education, said Sac State is committed to making sure that migrant students get their degrees.

Soon after the conference began, a group of panelists with speakers from admissions and outreach, financial aid, CAMP and Equal Opportunity Program spoke to the audience addressing some recent changes caused by the budget deficit, as well as some important reminders for prospective Sac State students.

Miguel Molina, the associate director of admissions and records for Sac State, said the budget would specifically impact prospective Sac State students. He said when the budget gets tight, doors start to close for a lot of students.

Molina alerted the audience that Sac State is now among the 18 out of 23 CSU campuses that is now impacted and the 2011 fall semester will be more restricted than usual.

“This is a dramatic change, and I’m hoping it changes soon,” Molina said.

For those students applying to the migrant program at Sac State in the fall, the impaction will not apply, Molina said.

EOP is also seeing some dramatic changes this year, said David Ortega, EOP’s academics outreach coordinator.

Last year the program received about 2,500 applications, admitted 853 of those applicants and enrolled 450 of those students. This year, EOP is expecting to receive roughly 2,500-3,000 application, but intends to enroll only 200 to 250 of those applicants, Ortega said.

“More people are qualifying, more people are searching for additional funds,” Ortega said.

Teresa Lerma, office manager for Sac State’s financial aid office, said there would be some changes within the financial aid process. One change is that loans dispersed are now served to students through direct loans, via the Direct Loans Education Program. Previously, loans were served through private vendors.

Lerma, whose presentation centered mostly around Free Application for Federal Student Aid, said filling out the FAFSA would be simplified.

“CAMP always does such a great job,” said Maria Gallardo, program coordinator for the migrant education program in Woodland. “It’s something that’s going to help support us in offering really quality service to our migrant students, so I think everything they do here to support migrant kids is fantastic.”

Cayla Gales can be reached at [email protected]