UCSB Basic Needs unable to offer Technology Grant, cites lack of funding

UC Santa Barbara’s Basic Needs program, a campus initiative which assists students in accessing resources for daily life and academics, is currently unable to offer its Basic Needs Technology Grant due to lack of funding. 

The Basic Needs Technology Grant, administered in partnership with UCSB’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, was a need-based award intended to help students cover technology expenses and access key technological resources to support their academic career. The grant provided up to $500 in funds for students with demonstrated financial need for the purpose of purchasing or repairing a laptop or tablet. 

According to Rebecca Segundo, the senior director for Basic Needs and state-funded programs, the grant is no longer being offered because its funding was exhausted at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. Subsequently, the Basic Needs program has not been able to identify an additional source of funding. Over the past four years, she said, the grant was primarily funded by the Student Fee Advisory Committee. 

In an email statement to the Daily Nexus, Segundo expressed that she hopes the grant may return and that Basic Needs is currently looking into how to reinstate it.

“We hope this grant will return, as it provided students with autonomy in identifying and purchasing a laptop that best suited their needs [and] coursework in order for them to be academically successful and make progress towards their degree,” Segundo said. “The Basic Needs team is exploring options to expand our program to include financial resources again in the future.”

Third-year political science major Camila Guizar was surprised and disappointed to hear about the loss of the grant. She had received support from it in the past and has several friends and classmates who also benefited from it during their time at UCSB. 

Guizar applied for the grant during her first year at UCSB because many of her classes required the use of an iPad in order to complete coursework, but she could not afford the significant expense at that time. 

“I was really trying to pay off just my tuition, so getting a new device was just not affordable for me at all,” Guizar said. 

Because of this experience, Guizar feels that this grant provided a valuable opportunity for her and recalled that the grant was in high demand. 

“I have a lot of friends who also told me about the grant, and when I was applying, everyone was telling me, ‘You have to be on it, it fills up really quickly, and there’s a lot of applicants for it,’” she said.

Segundo said that students in financial need, and especially those without a functional device for schoolwork, are expected to be most impacted by loss of the grant. She expects a rise in demand for loan-based support from the Basic Needs Technology Program. Additionally, she believes that more students will be likely to use the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships’ Cost of Attendance Appeal — a formal request filed by a UCSB student to increase their financial aid budget if their educational expenses are higher than the standard estimated budget — to access funding to purchase technology. 

Guizar shared that she is worried that a significant number of UCSB students will be negatively impacted by the loss of the grant. 

“In the past, I really needed that money, and a lot of my friends did too,” she said. “There’s so many other people in that position that I was that won’t even have that as an option, and college is expensive.” 

She recognizes that there are other grants in existence at UCSB that may be able to help students afford these expenses but feels that funding and resources are often limited.

“A lot of my friends who work at Basic Needs or in financial aid tell me every year there’s less and less funding,” she said. “I feel like we pay so much for this school. Why are they taking away resources that genuinely help students get their education like this?”

Segundo said that while the grant was a useful resource for students, the Basic Needs program offers additional support to students through various alternatives. 

“The UCSB Basic Needs Technology Support Program continues to offer other loan-based resources out to students in need of temporary devices, including loaner iPads available to undergraduates for up to one quarter through a partnership with Associated Students, advanced laptops available for one quarter through a partnership with Graduate Student Association, and Chromebooks available for both graduate and undergraduate students for up to a 30 day period,” Segundo said.

A version of this article appeared on p.5 of the Oct. 15 print edition of the Daily Nexus.