The colleges, including about two dozen around Los Angeles and every one in Orange and Ventura counties, submitted only a small number of grades to the California Student Aid Commission, the study found.

Grade reports were required for the 11,250 grants that the billion-dollar program set aside for community college students. College officials said the grade submission process is too complicated for many financial aid departments. Administrative problems have plagued the Cal Grant program since it was expanded a year ago, when the Legislature increased its funding by about $600 million over five years. In the summer, the program had to return about $35 million in unspent grant money to the state's general fund.

And college officials said a large number of financial aid departments are not equipped to verify and submit grades electronically.

The Assembly Higher Education Committee, in its report Monday, said the colleges expected 70,000 to 80,000 students to compete for the free tuition this semester. Instead, that number was slightly more than 50,000, and officials said the difference resulted mostly from the omitted grade reports.

"We know that many students never find out about the GPA requirement," Gill wrote. "They apply for financial aid and miss out on the opportunity to get Cal Grants because they don't know to make the individual request for a GPA verification."

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 629
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)