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  • Expanding Cal Grants? Tight state budget makes it unlikely this year

    Expanding Cal Grants? Tight state budget makes it unlikely this year


    Community college students like those at Fresno City College would benefit the most from Cal Grant expansion.

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo/EdSource

    A long-awaited expansion to financial aid in California, once expected to go into effect this year, is now facing uncertainty.

    As part of California’s 2022 budget deal, lawmakers agreed to reform the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid program, to make it easier to understand, and expand eligibility by about 150,000 additional students, most of them low-income community college students. 

    But the 2022 agreement was contingent on sufficient state revenues to implement the reform, which would cost an estimated $365 million annually. And with California now facing at least a $38 billion deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom has not committed to funding the reform, casting serious doubt on whether it will be included in this year’s budget. 

    That’s concerning to college access advocates and students who say the current Cal Grant program is too complicated and leaves out some of the state’s lowest-income students while the cost of attending college continues to rise. 

    Key lawmakers and other supporters say they plan to push for expanding the Cal Grant this year, even if they can’t get everything they initially hoped.  

    The Cal Grant, California’s key financial aid program, gives undergraduates grants of as much as $13,752 annually for tuition and fees, depending on the college. Students can also receive grants for living expenses. But the program is layered and confusing, awarding students different amounts depending on where they attend. Eligibility requirements also vary.  

    In his 2024-25 budget proposal, Newsom maintains the state’s funding for college financial aid, including $2.5 billion for Cal Grant and $636.2 million for Middle Class Scholarship, but skips a one-time funding increase for the scholarship that was part of last year’s budget agreement.

    Assemblymember David Alvarez, chair of the Assembly’s budget subcommittee on education finance, said he has directed his staff to look at each element of Cal Grant reform and identify what can be done under this year’s budget constraints. He plans to hold hearings on the issue this spring.

    “It was a significant commitment to increase access to more students,” Alvarez said in an interview. “And to the extent that we can create access to more students, if it has to be done in smaller steps, I’m willing to entertain that.”

    The proposed reform calls for multiple changes. It would simplify the structure of the program by narrowing it to only two awards: one Cal Grant for community college students and another for students at four-year colleges. The current program has eight different Cal Grant awards, creating what critics say is an unnecessarily complicated system for awarding aid.

    Earning a Cal Grant would also be easier. While some Cal Grants are currently lottery-based, all aid would be guaranteed under the new system to eligible students. And more students would be eligible thanks to the elimination of certain requirements.

    For community college students, there would no longer be a grade point average requirement. University of California and Cal State students would need a 2.0 GPA — down from the 3.0 GPA currently required. There would also be no requirements specifying age cutoffs or how long a student has been out of high school that currently exist for UC and Cal State students, rules that prevent many older students from getting aid.

    Income eligibility would be based on federal Pell Grant rules. For both awards, students would be eligible if their family’s household income is low enough to qualify for a Pell Grant. The median household income of a Pell Grant-eligible student is about $59,000. Officials say using the Pell Grant as a bar for eligibility will help increase the number of students eligible.

    Eligible community college students would get an annual award of at least $1,648 to go toward nontuition expenses like housing and food. Most of those students already pay nothing in tuition. The awards for UC and Cal State students would cover the full cost of tuition, which in 2024-25 will be $14,436 for entering in-state UC students and $6,084 for entering in-state Cal State students. The awards won’t cover nontuition expenses, but students would still be free to seek federal, private and UC-administered aid to cover those costs. 

    In total, the changes would expand Cal Grant eligibility from just over 340,000 students to about 492,000 students, the California Student Aid Commission estimates.

    Expanding aid to that many students would be costly, especially in the short term, but it could have long-term financial benefits for the state, argued Jake Brymner, deputy director of policy for the California Student Aid Commission. Not being able to afford college is the main reason many students either choose not to enroll at all or don’t finish college.

    “This is so critical to our talent pipeline, to California’s workforce and to our ability to maintain robust state revenue on a wide tax base with folks who are moving into meaningful careers,” he said.

    Newsom’s staff has yet to rule out the possibility that Cal Grant reform could be implemented this year. “We don’t speculate,” a spokesperson for Newsom’s Department of Finance said. “The law always envisioned us making a determination in May and we have not made any determination yet.”

    The state’s revenues, however, speak for themselves. Newsom said during his January budget proposal that the state faces a $38 billion deficit. That was $30 billion lower than what the state’s Legislative Analyst Office had estimated. Lisa Qing, a policy analyst with that office, said in an email that Cal Grant expansion “would not be triggered under existing law” based on current revenue projections.

    Qing added, though, that lawmakers could change existing law, such as by creating a different set of conditions to trigger Cal Grant expansion at a future date.

    “There should be some sort of negotiation,” said David Ramirez, the UC Student Association’s governmental relations chair and part of the Cal Grant Reform Coalition. The coalition includes higher education advocacy organizations, civil rights groups and students who want to see the reform implemented. 

    “It was really troublesome to not see it funded at all” in Newsom’s January budget proposal, added Ramirez, a senior at UCLA studying geography, environmental studies and labor studies.

    One potential solution, Ramirez said, could be to cut funding for the state’s Middle Class Scholarship and use those dollars to fund Cal Grant reform. 

    Convincing lawmakers to cut funding from the Middle Class Scholarship could be difficult, Ramirez acknowledged. But he said it would keep with his goal of prioritizing the state’s lowest-income students.

    “It’s a very political thing, making sure that there’s funding for the Middle Class Scholarship, because people want to please their constituents,” he added. 

    Another potential compromise would be to implement some but not all elements of the reform, but Ramirez said the coalition is still trying to “assess and identify” which parts of Cal Grant reform should be prioritized over others.

    Knowing what might be possible should become clearer this spring when Alvarez’s committee  holds its hearings on the topic.

    “The commitment is focused on increasing access to higher education for more students,” Alvarez said. “That’s what Cal Grant reform was about. And I don’t think anybody changed their mind about the importance of increasing access and reducing the cost of higher education for students.”





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  • Cal State student assistants and workers vote to unionize

    Cal State student assistants and workers vote to unionize


    Sacramento State student assistants and employees celebrate the official vote for the undergraduate student assistants to unionize.

    Ashley A. Smith/EdSource

    This story was updated at 1:10 p.m. Friday to include more comments from student workers and CSU chancellor’s office..

    Student assistants and workers in the California State University system announced Friday that they had voted in favor of unionizing.

    The students across the 23 campuses voted in favor of organizing one of the largest student worker organizations in the country so they could fight for better pay, working conditions, sick and paid leave, and more work hours.

    The students overwhelmingly voted 7,050 to 202 in favor of joining the CSU Employees Union (CSUEU).

    “This is for all of us and for all of our futures,” said Cameron Macedonio, a student assistant at CSU Fullerton. “Student assistants were increasingly fed up with the CSU administration’s treatment of us. They undervalue us. On one hand, they act as if we’re dispensable, but on the other hand, they expect us to do the work of full-time staff but for minimum wages and no benefits.”

    Student assistants often work for minimum wage, are limited to 20 hours or less a week, and don’t receive sick or paid leave.

    Danny Avitia, a senior majoring in sociology and leadership development at San Diego State, said he’s found it difficult to survive on $16.50 an hour while working in the campus Office of Employee Engagement. He assists the director of that office with organizing events, newsletters, graphics, media and communications.

    Avitia said he’s had to take on two more jobs and whenever he’s gotten sick, he “shows up to work and gets everyone sick” because he doesn’t receive any leave or paid time off.

    Unionizing “means better access to discounts like parking and transit,” he said. “It means that I can fight for a better living wage because, again, meeting the basic needs of people is simply not enough here in California anymore.”

    Now, they will need to decide what they want to bargain for, assemble a negotiating team and leadership, and present their demands to the Cal State administration. As part of the CSUEU, they’ll have assistance from that organization and the Service Employees International Union or SEIU.

    “With 20,000 student assistants joining CSUEU’s 16,000 CSU staff members, university management will no longer be able to divide students and staff or exploit student labor to degrade staff jobs,” said Catherine Hutchinson, president of CSUEU. “Joining together is a win for students, for staff, and for all Californians who have a stake in the CSU’s mission.”

    Many of the student assistants feel unionizing was just one step in a long process to better pay and working conditions. They all recently watched the California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 professors and, lecturers go on strike twice for a better contact.

    “There will be some struggles that will come with it,” said Alejandro Carrillo, an international business junior at San Diego State. “We just had the CFA strike and saw how hard it was for them to fight and the struggles that came with it. I’m not expecting anything less than that for student workers.”

    In the meantime, the chancellor’s office said it would maintain the current standards and requirements for student assistants.

    “The CSU has a long history of providing on-campus jobs to students through student assistant positions, which give our students the opportunity to gain valuable work experience while they pursue their degrees,” said Leora Freedman, CSU’s vice chancellor for human resources. “The CSU respects the decision of student assistants to form a union and looks forward to bargaining in good faith with the newly formed CSUEU student assistant unit.”

    California Student Journalism Corps member Jazlyn Dieguez, a fourth-year journalism student at San Diego State University, contributed to this story.





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  • Cal State’s online transfer planner aims to ease burden on community college students

    Cal State’s online transfer planner aims to ease burden on community college students


    Credit: Delilah Brumer/EdSource

    From complex general education requirements to early application deadlines, transferring from community college to California State University, Northridge proved to be a confusing process for Vanessa Rivera. Now, as a graduate intern at the Los Angeles Pierce College transfer center, Rivera works to support other students on their paths to the CSU system.

    “I was a lost college student, and I was really intimidated to seek help,” Rivera said. “This led me to a career path in counseling, (for the) ability to benefit lost college students like I once was.”

    With hopes of helping ease the transfer process for students like Rivera, the CSU system opened its new online CSU Transfer Planner for all California community college students in January. 

    “A large gap exists between the number of students who intend to transfer, and those who do,” said April Grommo, assistant vice chancellor of strategic enrollment management at the CSU Chancellor’s Office. 

    A complicating factor has been the lack of standards between systems. For example, the University of California has not had a systemwide transfer guarantee for community college students, and students considering transferring to Cal State have separate and different requirements for that system.

    According to an August 2023 report from the Public Policy Institute of California, only 19% of community college students who intended to transfer did so within four years, and only 10% did so within two years. Grommo said she hopes the new transfer portal will help bridge that gap.  

    “The CSU Transfer Planner was designed to create a more efficient and accessible pathway for students to transfer to the CSU,” Grommo said.

    The planner allows students to map out their coursework and general education requirements, enter test scores, view articulation agreements, explore program offerings and check if their GPA meets the requirements at their target campuses. 

    According to Grommo, the tool is tailored to help students figure out their individual paths so they don’t waste time and money taking unnecessary courses.

    “With the CSU Transfer Planner, community college students can directly connect to their future CSU campus of choice early in their educational journey, and ultimately minimize credit-loss and maximize time-to-degree completion,” Grommo said. 

    As of the end of February — less than three months after the portal launched — more than 9,500 students had created Transfer Planner accounts, according to Grommo.

    The planner is a great tool for students but has yet to see widespread use because of how new it is, according to Sunday Salter, the transfer center director at Pierce College and a member of the CSU Transfer Planner implementation committee. 

    “We want students to have some certainty,” Salter said. “A lot of students feel unsure in the transfer process. Our hope is that this tool will help them feel really confident in what is expected of them.”

    Samantha Watanabe, a third-year liberal studies major who recently transferred from Cuesta College to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said a program like this would have really helped her while she was transferring. 

    “My last semester, I had to take seven classes just to get into Cal Poly because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t really know that there were other requirements for Cal Poly. So I think a program like (the transfer planner) would have definitely aided me,” Watanabe said.

    Navigating transfer requirements is a difficult task for students across the nation. In Virginia, a new dual-admission program is working to address this problem and might ultimately serve as a model for California’s university systems.

    The CSU and UC systems also have recently launched dual-admission programs. First-time freshmen entering a community college can apply for the CSU Transfer Success Pathway program through the transfer portal. 

    Transfer center counselor Ashley Brackett at Allan Hancock College said she is excited about the planner, noting that it provides a huge opportunity for students. 

    “I’m stoked that they finally have created something similar to what the UC has already had for a really long time,” Brackett said. 

    The University of California system has a similar online planner for community college students to track their progress and requirements for admission to a UC.

    The UC Transfer Admission Planner is connected to the UC application, allowing students to keep track of their progress and apply for their school of choice all in one place, according to the UC admissions page. 

    The CSU planner will eventually be connected to the CSU application just like the UC planner is connected to its application, according to Grommo. 

    As the planner continues to develop, Salter said the Pierce transfer center will host events to introduce it to students who apply for the next CSU admission cycle, which will begin in October. 

    “I’m really excited that the Cal States have done this,” Salter said. “It centralizes communication between the universities and the students, and I’m looking forward to watching it expand.”

    Ashley Bolter is a fourth-year journalism student minoring in French and ethnic studies at Cal Poly. Delilah Brumer is a sophomore at Los Angeles Pierce College majoring in journalism and political science. Both are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Cal State extends general education requirements for transfers to first-time freshmen

    Cal State extends general education requirements for transfers to first-time freshmen


    Students walking on CSU San Marcos campus.

    Anne Hall/CSU San Marcos

    New general education requirements created for transfer students will now apply to all students, including first-time freshmen in the California State University. 

    Cal State trustees voted Wednesday to create a unified, simplified general education pathway for all students, despite opposition from faculty and students that the decision would eliminate classes that contribute to lifelong learning. 

    The decision effectively replaces the “CSU GE Breadth” and reduces the number of general education required credits from 39 to 34, by eliminating additional humanities and arts courses and classes identified as lifelong learning and self-development. However, it also adds a laboratory class to the requirements. Students would still be able to take many of these courses as electives. 

    The simplified pathway, known as Cal-GETC or the California General Education Transfer Curriculum, was first proposed in May 2022 as part of the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act of 2021 as a way to improve the transfer experience for community college students entering the University of California and Cal State systems. The curriculum was developed by the academic senates of the CSU, the UC and the community colleges and goes into effect in the fall of 2025. 

    Although the new transfer pathway was created with community college students in mind, Cal State administrators and trustees chose to apply it to first-time freshmen, too.

    About 60% of Cal State’s first-year applicants have some type of transfer credit, many of them earned through dual enrollment courses taken in high school, said April Grommo, CSU’s vice chancellor for enrollment management, adding that some continuing CSU students also complete general education courses through their local community colleges. Without creating one pathway, Grommo said about 25% of undergraduates would have to complete more general education requirements. 

    “Aligning general education for all CSU students provides an equitable set of degree requirements for all undergraduate students,” she said. 

    Trustees said proceeding with two different systems could lead to equity concerns. 

    “I am concerned that if we have one path for community college transfers and one path for those students who begin with us, that there might be a feeling of inequity,” trustee Jack Clarke Jr., said. 

    Although most Cal State faculty support the new simplified path for transfer students, many said they opposed applying it to students who enter the system as freshmen. 

    Beth Steffel, chair of CSU’s academic senate, said despite claims that students can still take these courses, there is a chance that courses will be eliminated if not designated as part of general education. 

    “If a course is not required, it will not be offered,” Steffel said. “Resource constraints ensure this reality.” 

    Eliminating the courses from general education requirements could also have unintended consequences by reducing the potential for students to learn other languages through arts and humanities and create costs by adding an additional science laboratory, Steffel said.

    Steven Filling, an accounting professor at Stanislaus State, said losing the courses provided in CSU GE Breadth rquirements would be detrimental to students who enter the system as freshmen because they would miss out on the extra skills gained from social learning, communication and critical thinking. 

    For example, kinesiology classes, which is the study of movement, fall under the lifelong learning and self-development courses. Students interested in business fields like accounting, for example, could take golfing courses to prepare them for meeting with clients.

    “If you’ve never played golf and have no clue about it, well, you may have a little bit of trouble,” Filling said. 

    These classes are called “lifelong learning” because they help students discover how to cope and deal with the world around them, he said. 

    There’s another reason some CSU faculty oppose Cal-GETC: Much of the curriculum was chosen with the UC system in mind. 

    “The UC has a pretty strong position of, ‘Well, if we don’t agree to it, we’re not going to do it,’” Filling said. “If you look at Cal-GETC, you’ll notice a strange similarity between that and the UC’s present (general education) programming.” 

    Filling said one problem with that is the UC and Cal State systems have different missions and, although there is overlap, educate different types of students. For example, the UCs are tasked with admitting the top 9% of high school graduates.

    “To think that somebody in the top 5% of their high school class is going to be at exactly the same level as somebody who is at the 30th percentile is unrealistic,” he said.

    “It’s clear our students need different things than what UC students do,” he said. “It may be the case that the community colleges, with the resources they have, can provide the additional support those students need to get them up to the level where UC students are. It’s far from clear to me that that works for students coming into the CSU.” 

    The new simplified pathway represents both systems, said Laura Massa, Cal State’s interim vice chancellor for academic and faculty programs. For example, Cal-GETC includes ethnic studies and oral communication requirements that were required for CSU but not UC.

    Student trustee Diana Aguilar-Cruz said some of the opposition from students arises from their rising distrust of the board and administration’s decisions. Students have been calling for some analysis of the current general education path before making any change. 

    “Especially with all the prior decisions that we’ve been making throughout the year,” Aguilar-Cruz said, referring to the tuition increase. “They really need to see this data. … That has really fractured the trust that students have.” 

    However, trustees said they did not want to proceed with two different systems for meeting general education requirements.

    Despite opposition from faculty and students to the change, Cal State officials said they worked collaboratively with both groups on understanding the pros and cons and took both groups into consideration. 

    “Shared governance doesn’t always mean agreement,” CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia said. “The success, sustainability and continued growth of our institution depends on our ability to recruit, serve and guide our students through our universities to remove barriers that sometimes we put in their way and provide clear and direct pathways to a degree and a fulfilling profession for us. And for me, I believe a single GE pattern for all CSU students achieves that goal, and it advances our mission of student success for all.” 





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  • A conversation with Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia

    A conversation with Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia


    Mildred Garcia, chancellor of the California State University System.

    Credit: Cal State Fullerton/Flickr

    In October 2023, Mildred Garcia stepped into her role as chancellor for the California State University, becoming the first Latina in the nation to lead a four-year public university system. Formerly the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Garcia joined the CSU system at a time of post-pandemic turbulence.

    Garcia sat down with California Student Journalism Corps reporter Alexcia Negrete in early May for an interview to discuss Garcia’s leadership goals, with student concerns being the primary focus.

    The discussion ranged from underrepresented groups having increased access to the CSU system, to Title IX (sex discrimination) issues, to enrollment and tuition challenges.

    This interview was edited for clarity and length.

    What are the main goals that the CSU, or the main goals that you have to continue supporting students in the next school year?

    My North Star is student success, equity, affordability, graduation, retention, everything. The reason I am here is because of the students we serve. We serve the first-generation, the low-income, the students of color, and the adults in the majority in California, with a four-year degree and beyond. 

    And we are going to be the role model — or we are the role models — on how we graduate students from diverse backgrounds to reach their highest potential. Everything I do is centered on that — how does this affect the students, the families and their goals to reach where they want to be? 

    And sometimes that goes against people’s perceptions; but this is mine, right? Because I am a first-generation college student. I know how it changes lives. I know we came from a very poor family. And I know how now people that come after me — my nieces and nephews and family members — will say not ‘Will I go to college?’ The question is, ‘What college am I going to go to?’ And so for me, it’s part of my passion, my mission and my life’s work.

    You have been president of two Cal State universities, Dominguez Hills and Fullerton, and you have been able to work with students one-on-one during that time. But as a chancellor, that can sometimes feel a little separated. What would you want students to know about you?

    I think No. 1 is that I had a similar background that they had. … I grew up in a very poor neighborhood. Then my father died when I was 12, and we had to move to the housing projects of Brooklyn. 

    I had to work my way to college. We were seven children, and my mother had to support us on a factory salary. … Everybody has a different story, but it’s a story of having the hunger to do better, because we want out of poverty, we want to live a satisfying life (with) economic independence. 

    I marvel and congratulate each student that is struggling to get that degree and go on and be whatever they want to be — whatever that goal is — and go off and help others and reach their highest potential and be engaged citizens in our communities and cities in California. … It’s not just the college degree, but it’s a path, it’s a chapter in your journey of your book of life. 

    As a whole, the CSU has faced Title IX scandals, which have led to some students expressing concerns about the overall Title IX process. How will you work to repair the trust lost by the students, and overall, change the image of the process by the CSU?

    Well, first of all, we had a huge report by Cozen O’Connor, and also the state auditor, and we are following those steps. Every president has a committee now on how to implement steps, and (they) are supposed to be communicating with their campuses how to really have a voice and have nobody be afraid, with no retaliation on issues of Title IX. 

    Every campus now is going to have a committee, someone in charge, and we at the Chancellor’s Office are going to monitor that. … Every president of every university in the CSU has a goal (of) reporting to me that Title IX is a priority, and that they are implementing the recommendations of the Cozen O’Connor report, and they will be held accountable for that. 

    What my hope is, is that each of the campuses is working with their vice president for student affairs, the provost and … human resources, (and explaining) our process. Yes, you can come forward; we will make sure that there is a process, and it’s documented, and that we follow the procedure to do the investigations.

    In the CSU, there have been some campuses facing some declining enrollment, and some campuses have been forced to cut classes or faculty members. Are you currently working to ensure that students are still getting the education that they need, regardless of the classes (and faculty) being cut? And if so how? 

    The answer is yes. Each president is working with their teams to ensure that the students that we have admitted will be able to get the classes and graduate. That is their No. 1 goal. 

    My No. 1 goal is for the students to have a wonderful experience on their campus and graduate, get the classes and go off and do great things and then come back and tell us about it and become great alumni. 

    Our No. 1 priority with our team — which is all the presidents and the vice chancellors — is student success. It’s going to be different on each campus, right? So each president has to work with their teams to set up structures and practices, and then hold themselves accountable to watch how students are progressing to graduation.

    Before you officially started as chancellor, CSU trustees voted to increase tuition for the next five years. A lot of students have disagreed with the decision and have had protests, saying that the Cal States will now become too expensive for them, or they won’t get enough financial aid support. What kind of reassurance can you provide students who are currently working to pay their tuition and who are concerned about the tuition increase?

    First of all, let me go to the data — I don’t have any exact numbers in front of us, but 60% of students have their tuition completely covered. So for the students, it’s not the tuition that’s giving them the problem, it’s the cost of living. What we have to figure out is how do we help and bring together Pell [Grants], State University grants and scholarships to be able to help each of the students really reach the cost of living as much as possible. 

    While I understand the students — I had to pay my way through college, and I worked three to four, multiple jobs, during the year — our tuition is one of the cheapest in the country. If most of our students are getting their tuition paid, what’s really hurting them is the cost of attendance.

    And so we’re trying to figure out ways that we can help the students — that’s No. 1. No. 2, I have been lobbying — even before I came here, at my former job in Washington, D.C. — to double Pell. No. 3, we need to work with our state legislators, who have been good to us, about telling them the need for more resources, for state universities like the California State University system.

    The CSU as a whole is anticipating more universitywide budget cuts due to less state aid, and some campuses, because of those cuts, have made cuts to their programs and positions. How will you continue to make sure that students feel supported during this time when we’re getting less state aid?

    Each campus has to look at what are core necessities for students so that they can grant what it is that they need the most. Each campus has to look at, ‘What is it that our students need in order to graduate, and how do we do that in a limited budget?’ 

    It’s very much like your budget at home — you have a budget, you’ve got to pay rent, you’ve got to pay your electricity, you’ve got to pay whatever it is that you pay — and you use your paycheck and the fringes have to go. You may not be able to go to dinner three times a week. 

    It’s the same thing with a university, you take your budget, and you say, ‘What’s our No. 1 priority?’ The No. 1 priority is our students graduating, our students getting their classes, and our students getting the support services they need in order to be doing well in classes and graduate. 

    Is there anything else that you would like to tell us?

    I think that the CSU has to understand they’re a very special place. I worked with 400 institutions across this country when I was in Washington, D.C., and we have to be working together to tell our powerful story saying what the value of the CSU is. Eighty percent of our students stay within a 50-mile radius of where they live after they graduate. That means (they) are the entrepreneurs, the journalists, the people who are going to run businesses, the people who go on to graduate school, the people who become medical doctors. This is what we’re doing for California, this is what we’re doing for the cities. 

    It’s a private good, I’ll give you that. It helps you and your family for generations to come. But it also helps the city and communities in the state because you pay taxes, you are engaged in your community, you are leaders, you vote, you’re healthier, all of that. 

    Look, I’m the first one to say nobody’s perfect; we have a lot to do to be better. But we are engaged in such a way that so many of our students are doing great things. … That’s what we need to be talking about. (We need to) continue to do better, improve performance, learn from our mistakes and get better.

    Ashley Bolter is a fourth-year journalism major and French and ethnic studies minor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Alexcia Negrete is a fourth-year communications major at California State University, Fullerton. Both are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Governor must OK expanded Cal Grant access for struggling students

    Governor must OK expanded Cal Grant access for struggling students


    The University of California, Riverside sign on University Avenue.

    Credit: UC Riverside / Stan Lim

    What does a Cal Grant signify for students embarking on their college journeys? For individuals like me, it embodies an unparalleled opportunity to traverse the realms of academia and pursue aspirations that once seemed shrouded in uncertainty due to the lack of financial resources. 

    Raised in a first-generation household where the prospect of higher education was esteemed but financially not realistic, attending college initially appeared impossible for me. When my parents discussed college, they explained that despite their desire for me to focus solely on my studies, it wasn’t financially feasible. My parents immigrated when they were 16 years old from a small Zapotec town in Oaxaca, Mexico. My dad works as a fry cook and my mom cleans houses; yet even with their long hours, they struggle to cover their own bills. They could only contribute about $20 every two weeks toward my education. 

    Qualifying for a Cal Grant made college feel like a possibility.

    Unfortunately, we know my situation is not unique. In my work in the financial aid office, where I field countless calls about Cal Grant eligibility, I have heard many students with similar predicaments voice their challenges. Many callers are desperate for assistance with steep tuition fees, housing fees and basic expenses such as food. Some students, even though their parents’ income surpasses the threshold to receive financial assistance, still struggle to afford tuition and rent and must work full time, which often results in missed classes and lower grades. There were numerous occasions where, after I had outlined the annual costs for a student, they opted to withdraw from the university due to the overwhelming expenses.

    But there is a beacon of hope for countless aspiring scholars who have long grappled with financial barriers: the Cal Grant Equity Framework, California’s commitment to reforming the Cal Grant to expand access to higher education. Approved in 2022, the framework is a set of strategies to promote equal access to grants for all eligible students, regardless of background or socioeconomic status. It does so by making it easier for students and families to understand what aid they’re eligible for, reducing eligibility barriers, aiming to cover the total cost of college, and more.

    But making this happen requires a dedicated push by California’s policymakers to fulfill their promise and fund the framework, communicate to students and families about this opportunity, and monitor its long-term effects.

    On May 30, the Legislature included funding in the budget plan to phase in implementation of the Cal Grant Equity Framework — and thereby begin comprehensive Cal Grant reform. The Legislature’s proposal would restructure and streamline the Cal Grant program, aligning eligibility with federal standards; include a cost-of-living adjustment for the new Cal Grant 2 award that would go to community college students, and remove several barriers to access the new Cal Grant 2 and Cal Grant 4 (four-year college) award. The current 2.0 grade point average (GPA) requirement for community college students would still be in effect, but will be phased out over a four-year period. The current Students With Dependent Children grant would start at $3,000 for these newly eligible students, climbing up to $6,000 over the same four-year period as the GPA phase-out. All current Cal Grant and Students With Dependent Children recipients would see no reduction to their financial aid as they will all be grandfathered in during the Cal Grant reform phase-in period. Taken together, this proposal presents a low-cost option to begin the implementation of Cal Grant reform and expands crucial financial aid to students who need it. 

    By keeping Cal Grant reform in the final state budget this year, California is on a path to opening the doors of opportunity for an additional 137,000 students once fully implemented, further extending the transformative power of higher education to communities that have historically been marginalized. Among these beneficiaries, 11,000 Black students and 95,000 Latino students stand poised to embark on their academic journeys, armed with the tools and resources necessary to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

    These reforms come at a critical juncture when California students’ basic needs insecurity has reached alarming levels. While Cal Grants provide substantial assistance, it’s imperative to recognize that covering tuition alone falls short of addressing the needs of many students, who often struggle to secure housing and may lack sufficient access to food. Our universities also have a role to play by leveraging their institutional aid to cover non-tuition costs.

    Embracing the principles outlined in the framework, California is taking steps toward realizing the state’s vision of an educational system that is accessible and equitable for all. By actively addressing systemic inequities and providing robust support for underserved communities, California is paving the way for a brighter, more inclusive future in which the transformative power of education is fully harnessed.

    The Legislature has now made clear their commitment to putting a down payment on Cal Grant reform in the 2024-25 state budget and the final decision is in the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Governor, we are counting on you to approve the Legislature’s path forward for Cal Grant reform and the futures of thousands of students.

    •••

    Carmen Abigail Juan Reyes is a 3rd-year Political Science, Law and Society major at the University of California, Riverside and the UC Student Association’s Fund the UC Vice Chair for the 2023-2024 academic year.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. to step down

    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. to step down


    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson, Jr.

    Resigning Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr.

    California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt

    Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. will step down on Aug. 11 following a spring semester that saw calls for his resignation after the university responded to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus by sending in police.

    The Northern California campus was among many this spring that experienced student-led protests calling for an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Jackson faced criticism for the decision to use police to quash campus protests and to close the campus for the final weeks of the spring semester.

    The incidents of the spring overshadow the end of Jackson’s five years at the university, a period of transformation in which Humboldt was transformed into the state’s third polytechnic institution. During Jackson’s tenure, the university upgraded laboratory space, expanded broadband, renovated buildings and launched new majors focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), buoyed by a $458 million investment from the state.

    The polytechnic overhaul has been credited with boosting new student applications and turning around the university’s financial prospects at a time when many campuses have experienced declining student headcounts.

    In a written statement, Jackson called the university “an amazing place with special people” and urged colleagues to remember that their work “makes a positive difference for our students.”

    A Cal Poly Humboldt news release said Jackson “has been consulting with the CSU Chancellor’s Office to ensure an orderly transition since early spring semester.”

    The spring marked a pivot point in Jackson’s presidency. In April, hundreds of students occupied the university’s Siemens Hall, joining a wave of campus protests calling on universities to sever financial ties with Israel.

    The San Francisco Chronicle reported that protesters used “furniture, tents, chains and zip ties” to block the entrances to the buildings.

    The university responded by calling in law enforcement to remove protesters from the hall. The Appeal reported in June that police arrested 32 people. 

    The police response prompted Cal Poly Humboldt’s university senate to pass a vote of no confidence in Jackson, arguing that he and chief of staff Mark Johnson mishandled the protests by summoning “armed, non-university police officers.” The resolution said that action “created unnecessary escalation resulting in physical assault on students and faculty and injury of law enforcement personnel.”

    The university ultimately closed campus on April 26, citing protesters’ attempts “to break into multiple locked buildings with the intention of either locking themselves in, vandalizing or stealing equipment.”

    The university continued classes remotely through May 10, the end of the spring semester.

    The backlash to the university’s response to the protests continued. Subsequent university senate resolutions called on the Humboldt County district attorney, Stacey J. Eads, to drop charges against students and faculty and asked the university to drop the interim suspensions of 69 students. The senate also sought an investigation into the events and decision-making that followed the April 22 protest.

    A group of 320 faculty and staff ultimately signed a letter calling for both Jackson and chief of staff Johnson to be removed from their positions.

    Becoming president

    Jackson was appointed to the university presidency in May 2019, becoming not only the first Black president in Humboldt’s history, but also its first Filipino and Native American president, according to Cal State. Jackson previously served as president of Black Hills State University in South Dakota and vice president for student affairs at the University of Louisville and Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

    At the time of his appointment in 2019, undergraduate enrollment was falling steeply. Undergraduate enrollment peaked at 8,242 students in 2015 but had dwindled to 6,443 by fall 2019. With the Covid-19 pandemic, it hit a low of 5,199 in 2021.

    Declining enrollment threatened to have serious consequences for the university’s financial future. Under a multiyear agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature, campuses in the Cal State system are on the hook to increase enrollment in order to receive increases in state funding.

    A polytechnic future

    Becoming a polytechnic campus appeared to improve Humboldt’s outlook. Newsom set aside nearly $500 million to turn Humboldt into a STEM-focused campus with new majors like mechanical engineering, marine biology and fire science management. The university is about to start construction on a new engineering building, according to a news release.

    The name change from Humboldt State to Cal Poly Humboldt became official in January 2022. The rebranded university enjoyed a record-setting application season for fall 2023, fielding almost twice as many applications as the previous year.

    The transition was not without its growing pains.

    In early 2023, the university announced that many sophomores, juniors and seniors would be housed in hotels and other off-campus options rather than on-campus residence halls to make way for new students. Hundreds of students protested the change. An online petition demanding “fair student housing” got more than 5,000 signatures.

    New housing projects will help to meet the demand. EdSource reported in 2023 that a new 950-bed housing complex, the Craftsman Mall, was expected to open in 2025 and that a second, 650-bed project would open in 2026. Ultimately, campus leaders want to add about 4,000 more beds.

    In fall 2023, the university’s undergraduate enrollment ticked up 2.2% to 5,419 students.

    The news release announcing Jackson’s plans to step down promoted the university’s financial turnaround, saying Humboldt has balanced budgets after carrying a $25 million deficit. The university is also bringing in more than $67 million annually in research grants and contracts, according to the release, and attracted more than $50 million from a fundraising campaign. Budget data from the Chancellor’s Office shows the university’s revenues exceeded its expenses by $117 million as of 2022-23. It also touted the university’s work with the region’s Tribal Nations, cooperation with the two-year College of the Redwoods, expanded international programs and a bachelor’s degree program at Pelican Bay State Prison.

    Looking ahead

    Jackson will “retreat” to a tenured professorship at the College of Professional Studies and the College of Extended Education & Global Engagement.

    “We do the very best we can every day, trusting the faculty, staff and students to do the same,” Jackson said in the statement.

    Cal State Chancellor Mildred García praised Jackson’s leadership in establishing Humboldt as a polytechnic institution, saying in a statement that the transition “inspired significant state funding to expand academic offerings, facilities and campus services, and enrollment growth.” She also thanked him for “his lifelong dedication to student success and educational equity.”

    An interim president will be appointed shortly, according to the news release, followed by a national search for a replacement within the next year.





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  • New law requires Cal State to overhaul response to Title IX complaints

    New law requires Cal State to overhaul response to Title IX complaints


    California State University, Fullerton

    Credit: CSU Fullerton/Flickr

    What began as reports detailing the failure of the California State University to deal with Title IX complaints has led to a new state law requiring that the system take action. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed the first two bills in a legislative package addressing sexual harassment and violence on college campuses.

    Of the bills Newsom signed, the first, Assembly Bill 1790, requires Cal State to implement recommendations in a July 2023 report from the California State Auditor. The audit found the system had “not adequately or consistently addressed some allegations of sexual harassment.” Universities are required to resolve sexual harassment complaints under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

    The second, AB 2608, calls for campuses to update their annual sexual violence and harassment training to include a discussion on “how to recognize if someone is at risk of alcohol- and drug-facilitated sexual assault” beginning in September 2026. The bill applies to Cal State (CSU), the California Community Colleges, the University of California (UC) and higher education institutions that receive state funding. Both CSU and UC registered their support along with the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.

    There are 11 other Title IX-related bills in the legislative pipeline. Cal State leadership is supporting three and has not taken a position on the rest, a spokesperson said.

    “The CSU is already working to meet all of the audit requirements,” Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith wrote in an email. “AB 1790 adds a requirement of reporting to the legislature on our progress. In terms of an additional workload, this bill will require the CSU (to) share the report we have already agreed to prepare for the State Auditor with the Education Committee.”

    Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Alhambra, was a lead author on both bills signed this week. 

    The raft of Title IX bills was released following a California Assembly Higher Education Committee report finding that students and faculty at each of California’s three public higher education segments do not trust the way campuses respond to instances of sexual harassment and discrimination.

    It was the latest in a series of investigations into how the system handles such misconduct. A 2023 state audit found the CSU system routinely failed to address allegations of sexual assault, including instances in which universities closed cases improperly. In addition, a 232-page systemwide report by the Cozen O’Connor law firm found that the system did not adequately respond to complaints because it was understaffed and lacked enough resources. It also found that CSU did not have a way to handle misconduct that was “disruptive to the learning, living, and working environment” but does not rise to the level of discrimination or harassment.

    A spokesperson for Fong wrote in an email to EdSource that each bill was “modified in consultation with stakeholders to address the fiscal implication of the bills” and that the cost of most of the bills in the package should be “minor and absorbable.”

    Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Burbank, authored AB 810, another bill in the package, which would require job applicants, as part of the hiring process, to disclose decisions determining that they committed sexual harassment.

    “We are hopeful the Governor will sign the bill. He has been very proactive when it comes to signing bills to address sexual assault and harassment,” a spokesperson for Friedman wrote. “We haven’t yet spoken to his office regarding 810, but we feel confident that this bill aligns with his previous support in this area.”

    In addition to AB 2608, the three Title IX-related bills that have received Cal State’s support are:

    • AB 2047, which calls for a systemwide Office of Civil Rights to oversee campus Title IX offices. The Cal State system has already implemented such an office, according to Bentley-Smith, and committed “a large fiscal and personnel impact” to back the office prior to the bill.
    • AB 2407, which requires triennial audits of how Cal State and the UC handle sexual harassment complaints. Bentley-Smith said the system does not anticipate needing to add personnel or new processes to implement the bill.
    • AB 2492, which would create confidential positions to help students, staff and faculty navigate the sexual harassment complaint process. Bentley-Smith said some of the positions already exist and that additional training will be necessary.

    A recent CSU news release said the system is restructuring its civil rights services and seeking to “increase staffing at the system and university levels, establish uniform standards and training programs, and develop more robust data collection and tracking systems.”





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  • Cal Maritime pleads for merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to save the academy

    Cal Maritime pleads for merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to save the academy


    Cal Maritime is the smallest campus in the California State University system.

    Credit: Cal Maritime / Flickr

    This story has been updated to include reporting from the Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday.

    A steep drop in enrollment has put Cal Maritime, the smallest of the California State University’s 23 campuses, on a path to merge with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

    Under the plan, which went before the Cal State board of trustees Tuesday, Cal Maritime’s 761 students would blend into San Luis Obispo’s 22,000-person student body with the goal of saving on overhead and ultimately attracting more students to the maritime academy.

    Recruiting out-of-state students and competing for federal dollars are two pieces of the turnaround plan, according to newly released details about the proposal.

    But faculty at both institutions said they have received little guidance about how the plan would impact their day-to-day jobs. And CSU officials’ proposal to the board does not address what one investigation into sexual harassment at Cal Maritime called a “history of pervasive male toxicity.”

    The CSU board of trustees opened discussions on the proposal on Tuesday and plan to raise the subject again in September. A vote on the proposed integration is set for November. If approved, CSU officials estimate bringing the two institutions together will cost $35 million over seven years. The plan would go into effect in July 2025 and affect students in the fall of 2026.

    Cal Maritime Interim President Michael J. Dumont appealed to the Board of Trustees to support the proposal on Tuesday, saying the campus has already made deep budget cuts that include leaving positions unfilled. Without dramatic improvement in the campus’ enrollment and revenue, Dumont said he does not “see the maritime academy continuing.”

    “Quite frankly, we’ve taken a chainsaw to every expense on our campus,” he said. “We are working drastically to save money everywhere we can. I don’t know how much longer that can continue … I have cut muscle, bone, and I’m now down to tendon and arteries.”

    In response to questions seeking more information about admissions, degree conferral and recruitment strategy under the proposal, CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith said it would “be speculative and premature to respond to questions about details yet to be determined.” Bentley-Smith said privacy concerns limit what the university can say regarding incidents and reports related to Title IX, the federal sex discrimination law. She said Cal Maritime responds “appropriately with measures aimed at holding individuals accountable for their actions and providing equity to affected members of the community. The university has placed a great deal of focus, energy and commitment on creating a stronger culture of safety and inclusion on campus and on cruise.”

    Cal Maritime, which has a campus in Vallejo and operates a training ship, serves a strategically important niche in higher education. Six state maritime academies together educate most of the nation’s merchant marine officers, the civilian workforce that operates commercial shipping vessels and supplies U.S. military ships and bases. Almost 80% of Cal Maritime students are men, according to fall 2022 enrollment data.

    Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, located 250 miles south, is known for its architecture, agriculture and engineering programs. The campus has increased enrollment by 13% over the past decade and receives more qualified applicants than it can accommodate.

    Merging the campuses would bolster both institutions’ academic strengths in areas like engineering, oceanography, logistics and marine science while allowing degree programs that lead to a merchant marine license from the U.S. Coast Guard to continue, according to the CSU proposal. Cal Maritime would also enjoy access to Cal Poly’s marketing and fundraising resources — a leg up to recruit prospective students and right the school’s finances.

    If the marriage of the two schools goes forward, the maritime academy would be led by a superintendent who is also part of Cal Poly leadership, according to documents describing the proposal. Maritime academy faculty and staff, similarly, would become Cal Poly employees. 

    Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo campus.
    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

    Righting the ship

    Cal Maritime’s finances are so dire that last spring the university projected that it would have only $317,000 in operating reserves at the end of June 2024 — less than it would need to run the university for three days, according to the merger proposal.

    Declining enrollment is a major culprit. Student headcount fell 31% between the 2016-17 and 2023-24 school years. Even if Cal Maritime meets future enrollment targets, Cal State officials write, a growing budget deficit “is inevitable.”

    The campus has already slashed spending to save money, CSU officials say, but further cuts would threaten the university’s ability to carry out its educational mission. As it is, CSU officials acknowledge that falling enrollment and budget woes may have had “an impact on the quality of essential student support services such as housing, dining, health and counseling.”

    The hope is that maritime academy students will benefit from plugging into Cal Poly’s student services.

    Other changes would be subtle. The maritime academy would keep its Vallejo campus during the integration, though additional majors with maritime industry ties could be located there in the future. 

    Kyle Carpenter, who graduated from Cal Maritime in 2014, said he hopes the proposal can save Cal Maritime. But depending on whether and how majors are folded into Cal Poly, he said, he worries that students who are now required to understand the maritime application of their education could lose that important focus. 

    “We need to maintain a strong maritime presence, so any bit of maritime education is a great thing,” Carpenter said.

    The proposal flags possible benefits for Cal Poly students, too. First among them: Cal Poly students would get access to Cal Maritime laboratory space and, crucially, a $360 million training vessel the campus is set to receive in 2026. 

    The chance to take advantage of the Vallejo campus is welcome news to Yiming Luo, a sophomore city and regional planning major at Cal Poly. He said he hopes the proposal would expand course offerings and give Cal Poly students from the Bay Area like him the “possibility of taking classes at Maritime over the summer for credit.”

    Faculty react

    Faculty at both campuses said they have lots of questions about how the proposal could impact them. 

    Steven Runyon, an associate professor of chemistry at Cal Maritime and vice president of the campus California Faculty Association chapter, said the proposed integration “came out of nowhere” and has garnered mixed reactions. 

    “Many faculty are very optimistic,” he said. “If we’re going to be integrated with any other university, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is probably top of our list in terms of who we would like to be associated with.”

    But Runyon said a lack of clear communication from the university’s leaders makes him worry about how the proposal would impact colleagues, especially those who do not work in a tenure track position, such as lecturers and librarians.

    Faculty learned of the merger plan when it was announced on June 5. They can comment “both individually and through their represented body” before the board acts, a Cal Maritime spokesperson said.

    Jennifer Mott, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Cal Poly, said she has heard little about the proposed integration. 

    “Will we have to teach more students? Will they be teaching more students?” she said. “Will it not affect anything? We just don’t know any information.”

    Mott also questions whether her department would remain independent or merge with Cal Maritime’s mechanical engineering department — a process that would impact her department’s gender makeup. 

    “We made a huge push in mechanical engineering to hire more women faculty,” she said. “I looked at the faculty (at Cal Maritime) and it’s only men, and so I don’t know how that would affect us going forward.”

    Cal Maritime is one of six state maritime academies in the country.
    Credit: Cal Maritime / Flickr

    A reckoning with sexual misconduct

    Reports of sexual misconduct in both the maritime industry and the California State University system have put pressure on Cal Maritime to do more to address sexual misconduct on its campus.

    In 2021, an outside investigator commissioned by Cal Maritime reported “several instances of inappropriate, discriminatory, vulgar or offensive writings or other imagery, especially toward female cadets” as well as “concerns over anti-LGBTQIA+ behavior and language used frequently aboard cruises and on campus.”

    A Los Angeles Times investigation echoed those issues and found that Cal Maritime failed to follow consistent procedures to address reports of sexual misconduct.   

    The resignation of Joseph I. Castro as CSU chancellor in 2022 over his mishandling of a Title IX sexual harassment case involving an administrator when he was president of Fresno State resulted in a system-wide reckoning. Cal State retained the law firm Cozen O’Connor to assess programs at each of its 23 universities to deal with sexual harassment and assault complaints under the federal Title IX law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. The probe found that the system lacks resources and staffing to adequately respond to and handle sexual harassment or discrimination complaints from students and employees.

    At Cal Maritime, a July 2023 report by the firm found “significant improvements to process, responsiveness, training, and prevention programming” over the previous two years. But Cozen O’Connor reported that those improvements were overshadowed by a lack of a permanent Title IX coordinator, distrust of former university leaders and a culture that discouraged reporting misconduct.

    Cal Maritime now has a six-person Title IX implementation team, including a director of Title IX, to implement Cozen O’Connor’s recommendations. 

    In March 2023, Cal State hired Mike Dumont to serve as the maritime academy’s interim president. A 2024 profile of Dumont in the San Francisco Chronicle names several recent reforms at the campus, including improving training on sexual harassment, hiring a full-time victim advocate and updating uniform, naming and housing policies to meet the needs of nonbinary and transgender students.

    In a statement, Bentley-Smith said the work of improving campus safety and inclusion “continues and will continue, both at Cal Maritime and throughout the CSU. One of the CSU’s highest priorities is ensuring all students and employees across our 23 universities are protected from discrimination and harassment.”

    This month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring CSU to implement the recommendations of a state audit into its handling of sexual misconduct. CSU officials say the system is already in the process of meeting the audit requirements.

    But Mott, the Cal Poly professor, said reports of sexual harassment and assault at Cal Maritime give her pause.

    “I know it’s an issue across a lot of campuses, not to say that we don’t have issues here,” she said. “But if it is a more toxic culture up there (at Cal Maritime), that is definitely a concern that we don’t bring that here, or that the students aren’t forced to go up there if they don’t feel comfortable going to that environment.”

    Funding from fees, feds and more

    The proposal anticipates a combined institution could raise more philanthropic and federal dollars. It is possible Cal Poly’s fee model — increasing one fee and levying a second on out-of-state undergraduates to pay for more financial aid — could be applied to the maritime academy.

    The proposal also argues that Cal Maritime has a great story to tell prospective students and can use San Luis Obispo’s “unquestioned expertise in strategic enrollment management, marketing and brand-building” to tell it.

    One draw is graduates’ future earnings. An analysis by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that a Cal Maritime degree had the highest return on investment of any bachelor’s degree from a public university in California as measured by its net present value.  

    Under the proposal, increased outreach would extend to prospective students in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. Pacific territories.

    Michael Fossum, the superintendent of the Texas A&M Maritime Academy, said maritime academy graduates are in high demand. But schools like his don’t always have the marketing budget to pitch prospective students on pursuing the career.  

    “It’s a massive industry that people don’t know about,” he said. “We don’t have the reach to help educate people on how important the industry is and what great opportunities there are working in this industry.”

    ‘A nationally known name’

    If the integration proposal wins board approval, Cal Maritime’s future might look a little more like Fossum’s institution, ​​Texas A&M Maritime Academy. 

    The Texas maritime academy is not an independent institution, but is part of Texas A&M at Galveston. In terms of leadership structure, Fossum, the school’s superintendent, is also chief operating officer at Texas A&M University at Galveston and a vice president at Texas A&M University. That structure reduces some overhead on his campus.

    “I don’t have to replicate every single vice president and every single function that’s on the main campus,” Fossum said. 

    The Cal Maritime integration proposal suggests the two campuses could experience similar consolidation in areas such as facilities maintenance, information technology, cybersecurity and administrative services like payroll and accounting. 

    Fossum said he hopes that if Cal Maritime links up with Cal Poly, it will enjoy some of the same reputational benefits his campus experiences from its close association with Texas A&M.

    “Cal Poly has got a nationally known name,” he said. “When you get the power of Cal Poly, just like me having the power of Texas A&M University, that absolutely helps. The association is good.” 

    Ashley Bolter, a recent graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Cal State board anticipates a ‘painful year’ as campuses cut costs

    Cal State board anticipates a ‘painful year’ as campuses cut costs


    California State University officials meet for the July 2024 meeting of the board of trustees.

    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

    California State University is taking the forecast of a snowballing budget gap so seriously, even a recent message touting a new hire came with the equivalent of a financial weather advisory.

    The nation’s largest university system welcomed Emily F. Cutrer as the new interim president of Sonoma State University last week with the stern reminder that she must address “enormous financial pressures” facing the university, where fall 2023 enrollment was down more than 36% over the last decade.

    That sobering message was repeated to the system’s 23 campuses at the last board of trustees meeting before the fall term — a moment of truth when campus leaders aiming to reverse declines in student enrollment will find out if their bids to attract and retain students worked. Even if efforts to boost enrollment succeed, cutting costs could prove a necessity on many campuses, CSU officials warned. Board Chair Jack B. Clarke Jr., addressing school presidents directly, said they ultimately will determine how to manage limited resources. 

    “Presidents, we understand that you’re going to have to make some hard decisions and, within your campus communities and your general communities, you’re going to be criticized,” he said. “Understand that we’re behind you in terms of making the hard decisions.”

    CSU could be staring down a $1 billion budget gap in the 2025-26 school year as the result of dwindling state support for higher education and rising costs, staff said at the July board of trustees meeting.

    CSU has also unveiled a plan to reshuffle dollars from campuses that fall short of enrollment goals. In April, the system released a preliminary budget document sketching how the system could reallocate $32 million in enrollment funding from 12 campuses that didn’t meet resident enrollment targets or target increases and shift it into nine campuses where 2024-25 resident enrollment targets have been increased. A CSU spokesperson said the system is finalizing those plans over the coming weeks.

    The system expects more budgetary trade-offs going forward, CSU Chief Financial Officer Steve Relyea said to trustees at their July meeting. Major expenses include a backlog of facilities and infrastructure projects, employee compensation costs and obligations the schools must meet under legal mandates such as Title IX, the federal law barring sex-based discrimination in schools.

    “We anticipate negative impacts on academic offerings and student support services,” Relyea said. “The funding that we’re receiving, while it’s more, is still not sufficient to cover the increased cost on our current operations, and at this point universities will likely have to redirect significant dollars from existing university budgets to cover employee compensation commitments.”

    Enrollment drops lead to cuts

    CSU earlier this year agreed to a 10% raise for faculty represented by the California Faculty Association following a one-day strike. Trustees last week voted to approve salary increases for four campus leaders over the objections of some speakers during public comment. 

    The grim forecast underscores the challenges facing CSU at a time of flagging student enrollment across higher education amid declining public trust in the value of a college degree. Systemwide, fall 2023 enrollment stood ​more than 30,000 students shy of its 2020 peak. 

    Campus efforts to entice students back to campus include easing transfers into the system, reengaging students who started but did not finish a degree and more support for students of color. And CSU leaders say they remain focused on long-term goals like boosting graduation rates for historically underrepresented students and rebuilding trust in Title IX and other anti-discrimination programs. 

    Funding those priorities will require hard choices. Officials anticipate they can partially plug holes in the budget with reserve funds, but they said school presidents and the system itself must tighten their belts to cover the rest — cuts they acknowledged could prove painful and unpopular. The university system also will have to contend with pressure from faculty, who argue they should have a greater say in university decision-making.

    Cuts are nothing new at some CSU campuses. In recent years, as enrollment fell more than 15% from pre-pandemic levels at schools including Cal State Channel Islands, San Francisco State and Sonoma State, campus leaders have held off on filling some open positions or launched voluntary separation programs to reduce staffing costs. Cal State Monterey Bay in May announced 16 layoffs and an additional 86 departures under an early retirement program. At Cal State East Bay, another campus that has seen a dip in enrollment, campus leaders in May announced that the school would no longer sponsor its women’s water polo to save money. 

    “Upending 19 student-athletes’ East Bay careers is without precedent,” said Jeff Newcomb, a lecturer and president of the California Faculty Association’s East Bay executive board, at the July meeting. “Going forward, authentic shared governance — it’s hard— but it’s crucial if we are to emerge from austerity measures with trust and strategic vitality.”

    Take Sonoma State as another example. 

    The school has weathered enrollment declines with serious cost-cutting. To manage a budget shortfall, spokesperson Jeffery Keating said in a statement, Sonoma State has trimmed $21.4 million from its base budget since 2020-21 and plans an additional $7.5 million cut in 2024-25. 

    Some of those savings have come from reducing the number of faculty and staff, including through attrition and early retirement programs. Keating said faculty and staff headcount fell 22% between 2019 and 2023.

    The aim has been “to protect student services and academic programs,” according to the statement, and the school doesn’t plan to scale back areas like financial aid, health services or career counseling. 

    He said the school sees some positive signs on the horizon: It projects that net student headcount will rise in 2024-25.  

    Across the system, CSU anticipates a $218 million shortfall this school year, according to a budget presentation. Making up the difference in funds likely will require tapping into reserves and “aggressively pursuing new students and working to retain current students,” said Ryan Storm, the system’s assistant vice chancellor for budget. 

    The budget presentation was not the first time Cal State has flashed financial warning signs. 

    The cost of educating CSU students far outstrips the money the system actually has to educate them, a 2023 report by CSU leaders found. Trustee Diego Arambula reminded colleagues last week that the gap between what the system estimated it should spend to meet student needs and what it does spend was $1.5 billion, and could grow as campuses trim their budgets.

    The search for savings

    The search for cost savings starts with the central office, Chancellor Mildred García said.  

    The Chancellor’s Office is reviewing each of its divisions in pursuit of “not efficiency for its own sake or purely for cost savings, but for mission-driven efficiency,” she said in a report to the trustees. In that vein, the office will split the division of academic and student affairs into two, a reorganization García said was estimated to save at least $500,000. 

    The July meeting also highlighted CSU’s smallest university — Cal Maritime — as both a cautionary tale and a possible inspiration for how the system’s campuses might share costs and academic programs in the future.

    The board considered a proposal to merge the maritime academy into Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in a bid to save the Vallejo-based maritime school following a steep drop in enrollment and rising overhead costs. The board will resume those discussions in September and make a final decision in November.

    Cal Maritime interim President Michael J. Dumont told the board the school has “taken a chainsaw to every expense on our campus” in pursuit of financial sustainability. Trustees praised the proposal to integrate the maritime academy into Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as an “elegant solution” that would save costs as the campuses consolidate administrative services and other operations.  

    CSU officials have left the door open for future campus mergers but say no additional integrations are immediately planned.

    A document announcing the integration proposal said it’s in keeping with CSU’s goal to look for cost savings “from consolidation of certain administrative functions and from inter-campus cooperation and collaboration in the offering of programs and services.” 

    In response to questions about whether future campus mergers are likely, a CSU spokesperson cited a document that says CSU “must remain open to considering all options in the future to ensure the financial health of the system and its universities.”

    That includes ongoing initiatives to save money short of full mergers, such as negotiating systemwide contracts with vendors and purchasing electricity for multiple campuses on the wholesale energy market. 

    “There are a lot of tools in the toolkit in addition to an integration like this,” CFO Relyea told trustees last week. 

    And Relyea noted that the $1 billion budget gap forecast for the 2025-26 school year is an estimate based on assumptions that could prove flawed. A shortfall could be avoided by making permanent cuts this school year, pausing new investments, bridging the gap with reserves and successfully lobbying the state for additional money, he added. 

    Some campuses might try to streamline their budgets in ways students won’t notice.

    That’s the goal at Cal State Northridge, where administrators said that measures like cutting nonessential staff travel or delaying plans to replace older technology and equipment were among the ways they hope to save money.

    “Everything that’s related to student success, we’re trying to shield that as much as we can,” said Edith Winterhalter, who leads the university’s budget department. “It’s really on the administrative side that we’re doing a lot of strategies to reduce our costs as much as we can.”

    ‘A painful year’

    A wild card in CSU’s finances is its reliance on the California Legislature, which has funded roughly 60% of the school system’s operating costs in recent years. That can expose the university system to swings in state revenue.

    CSU dodged the worst in this year’s budget. Early budget drafts proposed pushing a 5% funding hike that had been promised for 2024-25 into the following year. The final budget landed on a compromise: a one-time cut of $75 million, offset by an ongoing increase of $240 million. Staff attributed the improvement to an energetic lobbying campaign on behalf of the universities.

    The budget outlook going forward is less rosy. Anticipating more lean years ahead, state legislators envision an 8% cut to CSU’s ongoing state funding in 2025-26, according to a CSU budget presentation. On top of that, state legislators have proposed that CSU front $252 million in the 2025-26 school year, which the state would subsequently reimburse in 2026-27. A similar spend-and-reimburse maneuver would occur in the 2026-27 school year.

    Such an arrangement could prove risky for Cal State, Storm observed.

    “If we spend, in advance, hundreds of millions of dollars and the state does not reimburse us, it would significantly deplete our one-time balances and reserves, and we could be left with new ongoing commitments and no new funding to support them,” he said. 

    That reality has compelled Cal State to look to grow other funding sources, including what students pay to attend its universities. Trustee Christopher Steinhauser defended the board’s previous decision to increase tuition by 6% annually starting this fall, saying the additional revenue will allow the system to save hundreds of jobs. 

    “We heard earlier in the spring we have to do less with less,” Steinhauser said. “This is going to be a painful year. … If we didn’t pass that tuition, we would be in a whole big mess, much bigger than we’re in now.” 

    CSU leaders have also pointed to other possible sources of funding, including operating campuses year round and pursuing more public-private partnerships. Trustee Larry L. Adamson urged university presidents to think creatively about raising money from philanthropic sources as one additional revenue stream. 

    “How many endowed chairs do we do every year in the CSU? And I think the answer is few to none,” he said during last week’s meeting. “We have to start doing more and more of that kind of thinking, as the UCs and privates do constantly. And instead of trying to just raise money for buildings, which we do a lot of, let’s start trying to raise money that offsets our actual ongoing expenses.”





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