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  • California colleges worry about lawsuit challenging funding for campuses with many Hispanic students  

    California colleges worry about lawsuit challenging funding for campuses with many Hispanic students  


    At a recent Latino-themed graduation ceremony at California State University, Channel Islands, a student’s cap proclaims that nothing is impossible with family.

    Courtesy of CSU Channel Islands

    Top Takeaways
    • California colleges and universities have received more than $600 million in program grants.
    • Challenger successfully sued Harvard to end affirmative action in admissions.
    • Five UC campuses, 21 Cal State schools and many California community colleges are Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

    Each year, most of California’s public colleges and universities are eligible for extra federal funding for a simple reason: They enroll high numbers of Latino students. 

    The federal government sets aside millions of dollars in grants annually for colleges classified as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, a designation earned by having an undergraduate student body that is at least 25% Latino. In total, California colleges and universities have received more than $600 million in HSI grants since federal funding for the program began in 1995.

    California, with its large Latino population, has the most HSI campuses in the nation — 167, or more than a quarter of the 602 HSIs in the country. That includes five of the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses, all but one of California State University’s 22 regular campuses and the majority of the state’s community colleges. 

    But now, California colleges classified as HSIs are facing an uncertain future and could be at risk of losing that designation and funding if a recently filed lawsuit is successful.

    The lawsuit was brought in U.S. District Court by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that successfully sued Harvard to end affirmative action in admissions. It argues the criteria to become an HSI are unconstitutional and discriminatory against other ethnic groups and that all colleges serving low-income students, regardless of racial composition, should be allowed to apply for the grants currently available to HSIs.

    Colleges are eligible for the HSI designation if they sustain Hispanic enrollment of at least 25% and at least half of their students are low income. The designation allows them to apply to the competitive grant program. The money is meant to be spent on programs that could benefit all students, not just Latino students, proponents note. 

    So many California public campuses have the HSI designation in large part because of the state’s demographics: 56% of the K-12 enrollment is Latino. 

    The legal challenge is distressing to some officials and students who say the HSI grant funding has allowed many California campuses to improve their student support services, such as by offering faculty development as well as adding counseling and student retention programs that benefit Latino students and others.

    “A lot of these campuses depend on HSI funds. And with that potentially being stripped, there is going to be a loss of vital infrastructure,” said Cristian Ulisses Reyes, a graduate student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he has been part of an effort to help that campus earn HSI designation by next year. 

    Supporters of HSIs have been anticipating the possibility of a challenge to the program since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, particularly with the White House’s increased hostility toward diversity, equity and inclusion programs, said Deborah Santiago, the CEO of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit focused on the success of Latino students in higher education. 

    “So this lawsuit feels like a culmination of all those fears,” she said.

    The lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon as defendants. It’s not clear to what degree the department will fight the lawsuit. The Department of Education did not return a request for comment. 

    Edward Blum, a conservative activist and president of Students for Fair Admission, said in an email that the explicit Latino enrollment threshold requirement for HSI designation is, in his view, illegal.

    “That means otherwise qualified institutions are denied access to millions in federal support solely because they lack the designated racial mix. That’s racial preference disguised as education policy,” he said. 

    The lawsuit was filed this month in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and the plaintiffs argue that all colleges in Tennessee serving low-income students should be eligible for grants currently available to HSIs. 

    “Funds should help needy students regardless of their immutable traits, and the denial of those funds harms students of all races. This Court should declare the HSI program’s discriminatory requirements unconstitutional, letting colleges and universities apply regardless of their ability to hit arbitrary ethnic targets,” the lawsuit states.

    The lawsuit would create a lot of problems if the case goes against HSIs, but in the immediate future, it doesn’t change anything, said Santiago of the Excelencia in Education group. “There’s still going to be an application, as far as we know, for competitive grants this year, and institutions that have HSI funds are able to continue to use them,” she added.

    California State University, Channel Islands, recently held its 2025 Sí Se Pudo Recognition Ceremony, an annual graduation celebration hosted at the campus.
    Courtesy of CSU Channel Islands

    California State University, Channel Islands, has been an HSI since 2010 and now has a student body that is about 60% Latino. Achieving and maintaining the designation has likely helped the campus recruit Latino students over the years, said Jessica Lavariega Monforti, provost of the campus.

    “Students are savvy today and they want to know what programs are available to support their success,” she said. 

    The campus, since 2010, has received $42 million in HSI-related funding, which includes National Science Foundation grants for which HSIs are eligible to apply. 

    One of the programs created with that funding, called the CSUCI Initiative for Mapping Academic Success, launched campuswide in 2022 and aims to help students who are struggling academically. They are then set up with faculty in weekly workshops to get back on track. So far, according to Lavariega Monforti, retention for students in the program is 7% higher than their peers.

    The majority of students who have participated in that program are Latino, but like many initiatives funded by HSI grants, it is not exclusive to Latino and Hispanic students.

    The campus has also used HSI funding to train faculty in culturally responsive pedagogy, improve outreach to nearby community colleges to increase transfers, and offer mentorship for students to prepare for their careers after graduation.

    “I think what we’re most proud of is that we have been truly student-centered in our approaches,” Lavariega Monforti said. “I hope we get to continue to do this because this is about the ways in which our institution is able to invest back into our community.”

    About 150 miles north of the Channel Islands campus, another Cal State campus, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is in the process of trying to earn its own HSI designation. This past fall, Latino and Hispanic enrollment at the campus hit 25% for the first time. Campuses must maintain that threshold for two years before they can apply for the designation. 

    If the campus becomes an HSI next year, every CSU campus would have the designation. As of now, the only other campus that is not an HSI is California State University, Maritime Academy, but that is soon to be merged with San Luis Obispo. 

    Across UC, five of the system’s nine undergraduate campuses are HSIs: Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. Another, Davis, achieved eligibility this past fall by crossing the 25% threshold of Latino enrollment. UC hopes for every campus to eventually have the designation, including UCLA and UC Berkeley.

    Reyes, the San Luis Obispo graduate student who also earned his undergraduate degree there, is hopeful that the HSI designation will still exist by the time the campus is eligible to apply. He helped launch the campus’s push for HSI designation while working in the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, including helping to plan a symposium on the effort in 2023. 

    Reyes is a first-generation college student and said connecting with other Latino staff and students helped him find his way and succeed on the campus. 

    He first enrolled as a biology major, but was failing classes and on academic probation in his first year. Then he met with a counselor who happened to be Latina and helped inspire him to change his major. He also ended up joining the Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, a Latino fraternity that he said ended up being the “backbone” of his time on the campus. 

    Getting the HSI designation and potential federal funding would allow the campus to add more services to help future students, Reyes noted. But after seeing the lawsuit that was filed targeting HSIs, he’s worried the campus might never get to that point.

    “It kind of felt like attacks were inevitable to happen, but actually seeing that was frightening and worrisome for me,” he said.





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  • LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses

    LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    The Los Angeles Unified School District school board drew a mix of gratitude and frustration from communities throughout the region during its discussion of a policy that prevents charter schools from sharing a campus with its 100 priority schools, Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools and community schools. The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), along with charter supporters, said the board policy was discriminatory and threatened lawsuits against the district. 

    Borrowing from a previous resolution, the proposed new policy encourages the district to avoid co-location offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” and that “result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending District schools.” 

    The policy would come into play when the district evaluates new charter schools, when charters request different or new sites or when “existing conditions change for reasons including, but not limited to, insufficient space, addition of grade levels, and other material revisions.”

    LAUSD’s school board directed Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to develop such a policy through a resolution passed last September, and the board is slated to vote on it in February. 

    The goal of the resolution, according to board President and resolution author Jackie Goldberg, is not to undo anything — but instead, to prioritize the needs of district students who are more vulnerable. She cited hostility on campuses and challenges with sharing spaces, including those used for enrichment activities and basic needs support. 

    “We’re on the right path to get past, shall we say, discomforts and disagreements on what it means to have a charter school on a campus,” said school board member George McKenna during Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole Meeting. 

    “Everyone may not be satisfied all the time, but I think the guidelines are a great opportunity.”

    Charter supporters, however, have claimed that the policy discriminates against roughly 11,000 charter students by closing off roughly 346 district campuses. These restrictions, they say, could lead to more school closures and instances where schools are split between various locations — leading to longer commutes and accessibility issues for disadvantaged students. 

    “If the board adopts the proposed policy presented today, CCSA will be left with few remaining options but to, yet again, meet LAUSD in court and enforce the rights of charter school students,” said the organization’s CEO and president, Myrna Castrejón. 

    Co-locations in LAUSD 

    As a result of Proposition 39 — a statewide initiative — public school districts throughout California are required to share space with charter schools. 

    While there are several ways for districts to share space with charters — such as pursuing private sites or long-term leases — LAUSD has opted for years to co-locate its campuses, meaning that both a regular public school and a charter school share one campus. 

    “What we have at play here in Los Angeles is very unusual. … We know how we got here, so we have a golden opportunity here to fix it, to make it better,” said district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at Tuesday’s meeting. He added that the district should be “vigilant and honest about unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies.” 

    To secure a space, charters request facilities from LAUSD. The district then evaluates the request and comes back with a preliminary offer by Feb. 1 every year. 

    Charters are given a month to respond, after which the district has until April 1 to finalize the offer. 

    Currently, there are 50 co-located charters across the district spanning 52 sites. About 21 charters are located on sites that would be protected under the new policy. 

    While the proposed co-location policy has not yet been approved, several district officials said during Tuesday’s meeting that the proposed guidelines were considered when making this year’s offers. 

    And of the 13 new requests from charters this year, only two offers will likely be made on the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools. Meanwhile, the district did not have an estimate on the number of charters that failed to receive an offer on their requested campus. 

    “Co-location is one of many ways to deal with the legal obligation to share space and our moral obligation to make sure kids are treated equally; and, we have a myopic focus on these co-locations, which are really difficult even in the best-case scenarios,” said school board member Nick Melvoin on Tuesday. 

    “This district, LA Unified, traditional schools, has lost a couple hundred thousand kids in 20 years. We definitely have enough space for everyone. We just don’t allocate it properly.” 

    In fact, as the district experiences declining enrollment because of larger demographic shifts — in both non-charters and charters — the number of facilities requests and co-location offers has also declined. 

    Specifically, over the past five years, Castrejón said charter schools’ need for space has gone down by more than 50%. 

    Instead of focusing on solutions, Melvoin claimed both charter supporters and opponents have attempted to “articulate the pain for political gain on one side or the other.” 

    “I remain disappointed in the unwillingness to actually try and solve this,” he said. 

    Support for the policy 

    The policy’s supporters have repeatedly emphasized that avoiding co-locations on Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools is critical to promoting equity and protecting the district’s more vulnerable students. 

    “That’s not a political issue, that’s an issue of equity,” Goldberg said. 

    “An issue of equity says that the schools that are struggling the most to educate our students should not be given continuously more things to do, like figure out a bell schedule and how to share the cafeteria and how to share the playground and how to share the bathrooms. … That’s an additional burden on everybody on that school, really on both sides.” 

    Goldberg added that in order to avoid co-locations on vulnerable campuses, the district will need to reevaluate their definition of a “reasonable distance.” 

    Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing district teachers, have historically sided with the district on matters concerning charters and have voiced support for September’s resolution. 

    “It’s been months since the School Board passed the resolution on co-locations, but we have schools that are in the process of losing valuable classroom and learning space. Without action, there are schools that will soon have to hold counseling sessions on the playground, or will lose their computer lab,” reads a Facebook post from the union. 

    “Enough is enough. LAUSD needs to stand by its own resolution and protect our amazing programs.”

    Yolanda Tamayo, a teachers union leader from the East Area, said during public comment that Lorena Street Elementary, where she teaches, used to be co-located with a charter. 

    During that time, 10 years ago, the school allegedly “endured the dismantling of our computer lab, lost a full-time use of our library, auditorium, eating area, yard, plus the gutting of our important resources that our school desperately needed back then and now.”

    Another speaker, who teaches at an LAUSD community school, said he fears his campus could be co-located with a charter, which he believes would cost them space used to house clothes for students in need and preclude them from opening a health center and food pantry. 

    Concerns from charters 

    Supporters of charter schools have claimed, however, that the policy discriminates against charter students and could lead to “charter deserts,” harming students from marginalized communities, who make up the bulk of charter students, according to Castrejón, the CCSA president. 

    “Charter schools do pay a fee for the use of district facilities,” Castrejón said, noting that several at-risk charters are also community schools. “The cost of going to an open market in a place that is as overbuilt and as expensive as Los Angeles could actually … result in some school closures if Prop. 39 co-location is not made available.” 

    Another potential impact of the policy is an increase in multi-site offers, where charters are split across multiple LAUSD campuses, which would force families to weigh what is feasible against what they feel is right for their children, according to Keith Dell’Aquila, CCSA Greater Los Angeles local’s vice president. 

    Dell’Aquila added that split schools also lead to longer commutes and accessibility challenges for lower-income families. 

    “You may see a charter school forcibly relocated by the district that forces a family to make a choice: Are you the type of family who can travel across Los Angeles, can travel 45 minutes, has access to private transportation to get your family to that car or not?”

    Split campuses also pose challenges for school communities, he emphasized. 

    “You start to look at a school that has to do more with less with their budget, and they’ve got to have two administrators across two different sites. They’ve got to make programs work, you’ve got to make teacher [professional development] work,” Dell’Aquila said. 

    “You have a divided school culture. We’ve talked to every one of our schools who has experienced this split site offer and have said, ‘yeah, life is harder across the board.’” 

    While they cannot fully anticipate how the policy will be implemented and its effects, CCSA sent a letter to LAUSD’s school board Monday evening addressing several of their concerns with the policy, ranging from the alleged limits placed on charter school growth to the district allegedly ignoring the intent of Proposition 39. 

    The letter also threatens legal action if the board adopts the policy. 

    “A public school policy is a promise you are making to the public,” said Shawna Draxton, who has served as an educator in both regular Los Angeles public schools and charters for more than 25 years, during public comment Tuesday. 

    “My students are watching. They admire you; they care about civics; they’ve been to these meetings. And whether or not they agree with your decisions, they are looking to you to be courageous leaders.” 

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to add a statement from UTLA.





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  • Anticipating less state aid, CSU campuses start making cuts

    Anticipating less state aid, CSU campuses start making cuts


    Gov. Gavin Newsom announces his 2024-25 state budget proposal, including his plans to deal with a projected deficit in Sacramento on Jan. 10.. Credit: Brontë Wittpenn / San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris

    The Cal State System is anticipating more university-wide budget cuts as it faces expected cuts in state aid due to the state’s budget deficit for the 2024-25 budget year. 

    Already many campuses have started consolidating programs, freezing hiring, eliminating positions, deferring maintenance projects and restricting purchases. 

    At San Francisco State, President Lynn Mahoney said the campus has a hiring freeze and is starting a “voluntary separation program” this spring. It is also restructuring courses with actual enrollment. Last fall, the campus said it would need to cut about 125 positions this spring. 

    “The reductions have been and will continue to be painful,” Mahoney said. But the campus’ reductions and changes will “hopefully within about four years achieve enrollment and budget stability.” 

    In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom made an agreement to give CSU annual 5% base funding increases over five years in exchange for increasing enrollment and improving graduation rates. However, with the state’s $38 billion projected budget deficit, this year the governor proposed delaying the $240.2 million increase for the 2024-25 budget year to the following year.

    While CSU would then get two years’ worth of increases, the system would have to borrow the money to get through next year. 

    The plan is still risky for the university system if the state’s budget situation worsens and it is unable to fulfill its commitment next year. 

    “The governor’s administration has supported and continues to signal future support for the CSU and its compact,” said Steve Relyea, executive vice chancellor and chief financial officer for the system. “But the proposed deferral raises significant concerns, and we must proceed with fiscal prudence and caution.” 

    The 23 campuses are already being asked to help cover a $138 million shortfall this year. The system is projected to be short at least $184 million more from 2024-26.

    Relyea said the system will move forward with cost-cutting strategies but still find support for compensating faculty and staff, protecting students’ education, improving the handling of Title IX complaints and other priorities. 

    Trustee Julia Lopez warned the board that CSU’s financial commitments may have put the system in a deeper financial hole than is being projected once it includes promises like improving Title IX and repatriating cultural and human remains to Indigenous people. The only revenue outside of state dollars is the tuition increase, and at least a third of that money will go to improving financial aid, she said. 

    “There’s a huge gap between what we have to pay for in commitments and the revenues we identified,” Lopez said. “The conversation in Sacramento is just beginning. We need to have our voices heard, and we need to be very clear.” 

    Trustee Jack McGrory said the message to the Legislature has to be what happens if CSU doesn’t receive funding. 

    “There are courses that are going to be cut, there will be employees that are going to have to be cut, and that’s the reality of what we’re dealing with,” he said. 





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  • FAFSA delays are leaving students in limbo. California campuses don’t expect help

    FAFSA delays are leaving students in limbo. California campuses don’t expect help


    Sheilds Library at UC Davis.

    Credit: Karin HIggins/UC Davis

    The U.S. Department of Education is attempting to solve issues associated with this year’s rocky rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and ensure colleges and universities release financial aid packages in a timely manner through a new plan announced Monday — but some California campuses remain pessimistic about receiving support. 

    This year, 17 million students across the nation completed the redesigned form and are now awaiting offers from colleges. Last year, more than 1 million California students submitted FAFSA applications, marking a 5.9% increase from the previous year, when Covid was said to have hindered the number of applicants.

    Despite the department unveiling a simpler, quicker form in a “soft launch” on Dec. 31, this year’s FAFSA process has come with four-to-six week delays, and colleges and universities throughout the country won’t receive students’ financial aid applications until March at the earliest. As a result, many campuses are contemplating extending the May 1 commitment deadline for high school seniors whose decisions about where to enroll rest on the financial aid they receive.  

    “We’re not only talking about a better form or a better system. We’re talking about a better shot at accessing higher education for more than 600,000 American students. We’re talking about a better chance to go to college for students who would qualify for Pell Grants,” said Miguel Cardona, the U.S. secretary of education, at a news conference announcing the department’s plan Monday. 

    “We’re talking about making the American dream more achievable for so many more people who could realize the incredible potential they have through higher education but have been deterred by the cost and complexity of our current system.” 

    As part of the plan unveiled Monday, the department will send about 50 federal student aid officials to colleges and universities throughout the nation to help “prepare and process” students’ financial aid forms. 

    Senior Education Department officials did not provide a number or list of campuses that will receive support, but they emphasized that lower-resourced campuses will be prioritized, including historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges. 

    The plan also includes $50 million in federal funding for nonprofit organizations that focus on financial aid support. The department will also release test records for campuses to model. 

    “Ensuring our nation’s colleges and universities are prepared to assist in the massive overhaul of the FAFSA is critical for a smooth implementation, and we are excited to be partners in this work,” said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, in a statement. 

    “These are some of the biggest changes facing the financial aid profession — not to mention students and families — in decades, and it will take cooperation, clear communication, and mutual trust among all stakeholders to get us over the finish line. We are eager to begin this work and look forward to sharing more details soon.”

    However, Cal Poly Pomona officials doubt the plan to support campuses outlined by the U.S. Department of Education will do much to help CSU, UC or community colleges in California. Charles Conn, the campus’s associate director of financial aid, also said the announced measures should have been taken months ago. 

    So far, the UC system has not decided whether to push back the May 1 deadline, but Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, told Inside Higher Ed that the delays might have “significant implications” for students’ decisions. 

    Several Cal State campuses, however, have opted to adjust their timelines — as that is something officials say they can control. 

    Cal Poly Pomona, for example, has updated its commitment deadline for incoming first-year students to June 1 as a result of the delays, according to Jessica Wagoner, the campus’s senior associate vice president for enrollment management and services. 

    “It’s heartbreaking … to see this happening and know the impact that it has on the students, especially first-generation students from a lower income, or even the lower middle-class students,” Conn said. 

    “They’re relying on this information, and the Department of Education has really failed the graduating class as well as students who maybe are looking to transition from a community college over to a four-year college.” 

    Typically, Cal Poly Pomona would determine aid offers by the end of February. This year, as a result of issues with student information systems and the Department of Education’s delays, they probably won’t be able to extend offers until the middle of April.

    Conn added that delays will likely challenge students who need to update their records and that there are still some families unable to complete the FAFSA — including families where at least one parent doesn’t have a social security number. 

    “That’s a big population,” Conn said. “It’s not like two or three students. It’s in the hundreds if not thousands of our students that fall into that scenario across the system.”

    Most continuing students, however, will not be impacted, Conn said. 

    Delays with the FAFSA have also affected Cal Poly Pomona’s other operations and the ability to predict the nature of the incoming class, ranging from the number of students attending to the distribution of different majors, according to Traci Lew, the interim associate director of admissions. 

    It also tightens the turnaround time for organizing campus events such as orientation — which takes place 10 days after the June 1 deadline. 

    Despite the challenges posed by the later deadline, Lew emphasized that “we can’t allow families to make shotgun decisions.” 

    “We want to help our students, and right now we can’t. We are blind to the information,” Wagoner said. “So if they call us, there’s nothing we can say to assist and support our students. We should be on the phone helping them, guiding them, and we can’t do that.” 





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  • Backlash mounts as LAUSD approves policy preventing charters on vulnerable campuses

    Backlash mounts as LAUSD approves policy preventing charters on vulnerable campuses


    The LAUSD School Board meeting on Aug. 30, 2022 in Los Angeles. Credit: Julie Leopo, EdSource

    The Los Angeles Unified School District school board voted 4-3 Tuesday to adopt a policy that would prevent charter schools from sharing a campus with the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools, community schools and priority schools.

    This decision means that when making co-location offers, the board will try to avoid offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” and that “result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending district schools.” 

    The policy is months in the making — beginning with a resolution passed in September, mandating that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho devise such a policy. Board members reviewed a draft of his proposal at January’s Committee of the Whole Meeting. 

    “This policy, in the eyes of some, does not go far enough; and, in the eyes of others, it goes too far,” Carvalho said at Tuesday’s meeting.  “And somehow, experience tells me that any time you’re in that position, you probably achieved some degree of balance.”

    Supporters of the co-location policy, including United Teachers Los Angeles, have claimed that the presence of charters in district schools has created an atmosphere of ongoing hostility and that charter schools take critical resources —  including spaces used for enrichment programs and social-emotional support services — away from district students who are more vulnerable. 

    “Before we became a community school and a BSAP school, we had no arts, no sports, no clubs, and our students [compared] our school to a prison,” said a science teacher who spoke during public comments at Tuesday’s board meeting. 

    “The school has transformed….The students that used to want to leave immediately now want to stay after club hours. And this is only possible because we have the space available to host these resources.” 

    Pro-charter organizations maintain that the new policy is detrimental to the future of charter schools in Los Angeles and that it will likely result in more charters being divided across multiple LAUSD sites. They also anticipate charter closures will become more common. 

    “The district has finally made its intentions clear: to run charter schools out of town,” states a  letter to Carvalho and LAUSD’s school board members by the L.A. Coalition for Excellent Public Schools — consisting of about half of charters in the district — including 107 charter schools that educate more than 50,000 students. 

    “If the district can just elbow charter schools out of the campuses they’ve been sharing – if it can engineer feeder patterns, if it can remove charters from predominantly Black campuses, if it can make it all but impossible for kids to enroll in charters throughout their K-12 education – then L.A. Unified will keep more students and save a few bucks.” 

    The letter further alleges that the district’s policy is not about students’ education or equity, but rather about the district’s enrollment and financial challenges. 

    “The resolution will most immediately and severely impact thousands of predominantly Black and Latino students. Even more alarming is that it paves the way for L.A. Unified to eradicate charter schools altogether, denying so many families their civil rights, their hopes and dreams for their children’s futures.” 

    Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, said in a statement that “the decision of the LAUSD Board of Education to enact this policy is divisive, discriminatory, and unlawful.” 

    Castrejón added, ”It is a shameful day when the second-largest school district in the nation puts politics ahead of students and families. . .. Instead of following California law and providing equitable facilities for charter public school students, LAUSD’s Board voted today with their campaign donors and against the very students they took an oath to support.” 

    ‘Merely moving and enlarging challenges’ 

    In addition to a wealth of support, the policy has also garnered backlash — from both pro-charter organizations and from individuals who said the policy doesn’t do enough to protect vulnerable students. 

    “This resolution is the capstone of a relentless, decades-long campaign….to cast blame rather than take responsibility,” the letter reads. 

    A survey conducted by CCSA’s Local Advocacy Team of 28 organizations also found that 10% of charter students in district facilities are Black/African American, in comparison to 4% of all public school students in LAUSD. About 90% of those students are from low income backgrounds.

    Charters were also found to have more socio-economically disadvantaged students and students who are English learners. 

    Meanwhile, the coalition’s letter also states that blocking co-locations on BSAP campuses will lead to fewer charters being able to serve Black students in the long run, adding that it takes “gall to rob Black families of the critical lifeline that our schools provide.” 

    School Board Member Nick Melvoin, who voted against the policy, also said that while he appreciates the policy’s intentions, “the district’s own analysis suggests that this policy will create not fewer, but more co-locations.” 

    “This may placate some folks in the room, but next year, we’ll have folks from 600 other schools back here with concerns because we’re not solving anything,” Melvoin said. “We’re merely moving and enlarging challenges.” 

    Spreading a charter school across multiple campuses can have negative effects, according to charter proponents — and CCSA’s survey specifically found that: 

    • “89% (8/9) reported a negative impact on staffing due to a split campus.”
    • “77% (7/9) reported a negative impact on school culture due to a split campus.”
    • “66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on student enrollment and the ability of families to maintain access to the school due to a split campus.”
    • “66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on school finances due to a split campus.”
    • “55% (5/9) reported a negative impact on programs or academic offerings available to students due to a split campus.” 

    Meanwhile, LAUSD board president Jackie Goldberg, who co-authored the initial resolution passed in September, rebuked claims from charter proponents, insisting that she was not “complaining about charters” and had no intention to “un-do anything.”

    “This resolution simply says if we can undo some of the problems we’ve created, let’s try to do that as we go forward,” Goldberg said. 

    Rather, she faulted Proposition 39 — which requires public school districts to share space with charters — calling it “flawed from the day it was written.”  She also criticized the “privately owned, publicly funded” nature of charter schools. 

    Goldberg also blamed the CCSA and the current state of the charter movement — which she said is more focused on competing with public schools rather than improving them. 

    “Prop 39 overrules everything,” Goldberg claimed on Tuesday. “And the enormous amount of money that the California Charter Schools Association is willing to spend suing districts … .is a design for them to contain power in Sacramento.” 

    Meanwhile, Scott Schmerelson, vice president of the LAUSD school board, who voted in favor of the policy, said that while he sees the policy as a step forward, he also recognizes that some do not feel it is enough to protect the district’s most vulnerable students. 

    “I hear you, I want to say that I understand you don’t feel we’ve done enough,” he said. “But we have made progress. And for now, I am willing to say OK, we will approve this, but we will keep the conversation going.” 

    ‘A substantial risk of litigation’ 

    A letter released by Latham and Watkins LLP on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association, claims that the newly adopted policy is illegal and places the district at “a substantial risk of litigation.” 

    “By prioritizing public school students attending District-run schools over public school students who attend charter public schools, the policy violates Proposition 39’s mandate that ‘public school facilities should be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools,’” the letter reads. 

    According to the letter, there are currently 13 co-locations on the district’s priority schools this academic year — as well as seven on community schools and 19 on BSAP campuses.  

    “I just hope that as we walk out of this building today,” Carvalho said, “we recognize that at the end of the day, that the only thing that matters, the only thing that should matter…. is what we do for kids, how we do it for kids despite our positions as adults.”





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  • CSU campuses focus on new strategies to help students of color 

    CSU campuses focus on new strategies to help students of color 


    CSU’s Young Males of Color conference in October 2023.

    Credit: CSU Dominguez Hills

    Last year, Cal State campuses received some sobering details about the growing gaps in graduation rates between students of color and their white counterparts. Instead of decreasing, the graduation equity gaps between Black, Latino and Native or Indigenous students have been increasing. 

    But some campuses are targeting new dollars and deploying new strategies to specifically target students of color that will help increase graduation, persistence and retention. 

    CSU’s Young Males of Color Consortium, which is housed at Cal State Dominguez Hills, received $3.2 million from a group of organizations including Ballmer Group, College Futures Foundation, ECMC Foundation and Ichigo Foundation to create new programs that support men of color on Cal State campuses. Sixteen CSU campuses and their neighboring community colleges will deploy those programs with the goal of improving rates of transfer, retention and graduation for up to 800 students. The partnered universities and colleges will start working with up to 40 young men each to pilot the new strategies.

    The consortium, which started in 2017, has the goal of working across campuses to share information and data, and find solutions to help CSU’s Black and brown men. 

    The main challenge the consortium realized it needed to tackle was “institutional complacency” because many campuses failed to have the right data on students of color, or limited their investment in improving their academic performance, said William Franklin, vice president of student affairs for the Dominguez Hills campus.

    Last year, during CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025 event, new data revealed the graduation gap between Black, Latino and Native American students and their peers increased by 1 point to a 13% difference. The 2023 six-year graduation rate for Black students, for example, is at 47% but 62% for all students. 

    The rates on the Dominguez Hills campus, for example, are lower for Black and Latino men. The six-year rate for Black men is 36.4% and 38.9% for Latino men on the campus. Data for Native American and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students was not available. 

    “We need to hire full-time folks and we need to really give them training,” Franklin said. “We need to begin to connect with our institutional research office and understand our data better. It doesn’t necessarily mean we need more money, but we do need to spend the money that we have differently in order to ensure that those male of color programs get the kind of support they need.” 

    With the new funding, the campuses will work together to assess and evaluate instructors and staff, while also providing professional development opportunities. The campuses would also work with their community college partners to better assist them in transferring more Black and brown students to the universities.

    Members of the consortium have already visited other universities outside of California that have seen success in improving graduation rates for Black and Latino students such as Georgia State University, Urban Prep Academies in Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin, Franklin said. 

    And while they’re unsure which strategies will work best for Cal State students, figuring it out is part of the funding. 

    “Our funders have also given us an opportunity to take the funding they’ve given us to provide it as seed money for campuses to put some innovative programs and strategies in place,” Franklin said. “Fail fast or succeed fast, and learn what they need to do in order to scale those things that work.” 

    Black Honors College

    Sacramento State is also trying something new to help not only the Black students on its campuses but across the system. 

    This fall, the university will debut the country’s first Black Honors College. Sac State has one of the CSU’s largest populations of Black students, and low graduation rates. The six-year rate for all Black students is about 45%. 

    “We’re the No. 1 institution serving Black students and we’re in the bottom third when it comes to graduation rates,” Sac State President Luke Wood said. “Our 75-year history has shown that what we’re doing is not working. I don’t just speak about that from the perspective of being president here, but I was a student here at Sac State. I got my bachelor’s degree here. I got my master’s degree here, and many of the people who are my contemporaries never graduated because the institution is not designed to support Black students.” 

    Sac State officials also looked outside of California for solutions, particularly at historically Black colleges and universities where graduation rates are much higher. 

    “We’re creating an institution within the institution so students have a standalone experience with their own curriculum, their own faculty, their staff, their space,” Wood said. 

    The college would be open to students of all majors, but the first two years of curriculum would have an African-American focus. For example, political science or statistics classes would have a unique focus on Black politics, issues and community. 

    Wood said the idea is built on research that shows creating a “family-like environment” and offering a curriculum relevant to students’ lives and experiences improves their academic success. 

    The new college will have 6,000-square feet of dedicated space with its own faculty, dean, counselors, academic advisers, support staff and outreach. But the ultimate goal is to see more Black Honors Colleges appear statewide and nationally, despite the conservative attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion happening in other states. 

    But Wood anticipates more Black Honors Colleges appearing on community college campuses, some of which have already contacted Sac State for guidance or information, with the potential to establish a transfer relationship with the university. 

    “We’re going to grow this Honors College pretty extensively,” he said. “Our goal right now is 500 or 600, but when we can get more resources, our goal is to get to a thousand students.”

    NOTE: EdSource receives funding from several foundations, including the College Futures Foundation and ECMC Foundation. EdSource maintains sole editorial control over the content of its coverage.





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  • As protests surge across college campuses, student journalists report from the front lines

    As protests surge across college campuses, student journalists report from the front lines


    Hundreds of UCLA students protest in support of Palestinians on May 2, 2024.

    Credit: Christine Kao

    A critical presence persists across the dozens of university campuses nationwide where students have organized demonstrations in support of Palestinians: student journalists reporting for their school newspapers, at times providing round-the-clock coverage and, increasingly, doing so under threats of arrest and violence.

    “They recognize that the eyes of the world are on college campuses and they can be a lens through which people can see what’s happening,” said Christina Bellantoni, director of the Annenberg Media Center at USC.

    Student journalists are central to the reporting of historic national protests calling for universities to divest from companies with military ties to Israel and for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    “We have a job to do as student journalists. I like to say we’re not student journalists, we’re journalists,” said Matthew Royer, national editor and higher education editor at the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper.

    At some schools that have shut down access to nonstudents, like USC, a private institution, student journalists are the only regular source of news on campus grounds. And at schools where journalists from outside news organizations are present, like UCLA, student journalists have remained top producers of the most accurate, up-to-date information.

    A post by Matthew Royer from The Daily Bruin at UCLA.

    The Daily Bruin had such high readership this week that its site was down for several hours Wednesday, requiring the newsroom to extend the site’s bandwidth.

    Amid their reporting, some have also become part of the story.

    This week at UCLA, a group of four student reporters were verbally harassed, beaten, kicked and pepper-sprayed by a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters who that night had attacked the on-campus encampment for hours.

    A police officer grabs a protester by the back of their jacket to stop him from moving toward the encampment on May 2, 2024.
    Credit: Brandon Morquecho / Daily Bruin Photo Editor

    At least one of the reporters, Catherine Hamilton, went to the hospital with injuries after the violent assault.

    “Truly, there’s not much time for us to recover. As the new day starts, we have to be prepared for anything to happen,” Hamilton said in an interview with CNN. She returned to her reporting post shortly after being released from the hospital.

    Royer confirmed that UCLA had promised journalists a safe room that night, but “the doors were locked, and they weren’t given access by the hired UCLA security.”

    UCLA has not responded to a request for comment.

    In a statement Thursday, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said the violence on campus “has fractured our sense of togetherness and frayed our bonds of trust, and will surely leave a scar on the campus.”

    His statement made no reference to the assault on journalists.

    “I think it’s our jobs to continue to do what we can in the safest manner possible,” said Royer, who said counterprotesters have yanked his press badge, blasted megaphones near his ears, and blocked his camera over multiple days while reporting.

    Student journalists nationwide have also been threatened with arrest by police arriving on campus to clear student encampments.

    “We train these students to put safety first,” said Bellantoni. “What I cannot guarantee is that they won’t be arrested in this. If they are arrested, I can guarantee you those charges will not stand and we will make sure that we fight that because journalists have a right to be there and a right to witness it.”

    A man wearing a jacket that reads “Anti Genocide Social Club” records a livestream of a line of CHP officers between Royce Hall and Haines Hall on May 2, 2024.
    Credit: Brandon Morquecho / Daily Bruin Photo Editor

    Protests in support of Palestine are nothing new on UC Berkeley’s campus, according to Aarya Mukherjee, 19, who has covered campus activism and the encampment as a student life reporter for months at The Daily Californian.

    But when he heard Daily Bruin reporters were assaulted, he said he “felt for them.”

    “Last night, there was a very good chance of a raid. … So we were kind of preparing for the same thing to happen to us,” Mukherjee said, noting that the campus has been generally peaceful with little hostility toward the press. “It’s honestly scary, but … we accept that risk. We just hope it doesn’t happen.”

    Given UC Berkeley’s history of protest and constant stream of student activism, managing editor Matt Brown said Daily Cal reporters are uniquely prepared to cover events that may turn violent. For years, guidelines on staying safe have been passed down through the organization’s editors.

    “Everybody’s always in pairs. Everybody’s always taking shifts. Everybody’s always communicating. Nobody goes out there without a press pass,” Brown said.

    Free Palestine encampment at UC Berkeley on April 29, 2024.
    Credit: Kelcie Lee / EdSource

    The Daily Cal published an editorial late Wednesday that expressed solidarity with reporters at The Daily Bruin. It also condemned UCLA for failing to protect campus journalists.

    “Everybody was on board; and within about an hour, we had a draft,” Brown said.

    “We condemn the attackers and any attempt to stifle student coverage,” the editorial read. “It is the community’s duty to safeguard the students who are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep them informed.”

    Many have also collaborated across campuses, a sign of their understanding that they hold a powerful position. The Daily Trojan, the Daily Bruin, the Emory Wheel, The Daily Californian, Washington Square News (NYU), the Berkeley Beacon (Emerson College) and the Daily Texan (UT Austin) joined forces to produce a compilation of photos of protests at their respective campuses.

    ‘That’s our Achilles’ heel’

    Mercy Sosa, 22, received a tip that protests were starting at Sacramento State University on Monday at 6 a.m.

    As editor-in-chief of The State Hornet, she got to work. By 6:30 a.m., she was on the scene — and continued to report on developments at the encampment for the next two days despite upcoming final exams.

    “The amount of walking I did, the amount of not sleeping that I did — it’s exhausting,” Sosa said. “But I felt like it was my duty to be there and to make sure that students knew what was going on. And this isn’t just a Sac State story: This is a national story. … I couldn’t just turn a blind eye.”

    The campus announced the encampment could remain intact until May 8. Unlike at other campuses, student reporters at Sacramento State haven’t faced aggression from campus or other stakeholders. The environment, Sosa said, has been mostly peaceful, with some counterprotesters and few police.

    It’s similar at Sonoma State University, where Ally Valiente’s team at the Sonoma State Star are covering their growing student encampment.

    But the current calm hasn’t made it easier for them to stomach the violence that played out at UCLA.

    Daily Bruin homepage on May, 1, 2024.
    Daily Bruin homepage on May, 2, 2024.

    “It sort of makes me scared this could actually happen to any campus,” said Valiente, news editor.

    Being a member of student media, where reporters and protesters can interact student-to-student, has played a key role in developing trust with sources, who are sometimes classmates, according to Chris Woodard, a managing editor at The State Hornet.

    It’s a unique level of access that Brad Butterfield leaned into while reporting for Cal Poly Humboldt’s The Lumberjack, along with his knowledge of campus grounds.

    Not all reporters covering Humboldt’s protests understood “how complex our campus is,” he said, which impacted police when it came to “gaining control.”

    They also often work alongside journalists from other publications, who at times forget they are students.

    Woodard recalled being in line for an interview by the encampment alongside a half dozen reporters from other publications.

    “I kind of went up to all the other publications like ‘Hey guys, if you can please do me a favor and let me do the next interview? I have to go to class,’” Woodard said.

    “I could tell this by the reaction of all the other professional journalists they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a thing for you.’”

    They let him go ahead — and he made it to class 20 minutes late.

    Mukherjee and his Daily Cal colleagues are taking shifts to cover the protests and encampment, sometimes reporting in the field for 24 hours straight in the days leading up to final exams.

    He said a relentless news cycle has made it harder to focus on school and that it is sometimes hard to separate life as a student from life as a reporter.

    “Students should obviously be studying, hitting the books,” Mukherjee said. “Because of the constant news, we feel as though … we have a responsibility to report that, kind of, almost supersedes our due diligence as students.”

    Others, like The Lumberjack’s Butterfield, did not attend class once protests began.

    “Because I am a journalism major, I think that’s important to note: I don’t feel like I’m missing out too much on what’s happening in my classes because I’m out in the field doing what I’m going to school to learn how to do,” said Butterfield, 26. “When there’s a massive and important story on our campus to cover, at least my professors have been pretty lenient in understanding that that does take its priority in a lot of ways — and I’ll catch up on my work at some point in the next week or two.”

    With local newsrooms growing sparse, Sosa said student press has become increasingly important in filling that void of local coverage for both the campus and larger community.

    But in communities like Humboldt, student coverage is sometimes nonexistent over the summer.

    “I think that’s our Achilles’ heel, when the semester ends a lot of folks kind of go their own separate ways, especially here in Humboldt County ’cause there’s so little jobs,” said Butterfield.

    Woodard also said that “it’s hard to bear that pressure” for being at the forefront of national reporting as a student.

    “You’ve become the No. 1 news source for the biggest story in the country. But at the same time, we have finals next week,” said Woodard, 30. “It’s like, which one do I take more pride in?”

    A few days ago, he said he sat on the floor of his apartment and cried.

    The toll, he said, can be especially difficult on editors — who are not only going to school and contributing to coverage, but also managing teams of their peers and classmates, often in their late teens or early 20s.

    “Being an editor of student media and being an editor in real media are two very, very different things,” Woodard said. “For all the student editors out there that are dealing with this: I hope everyone just gives them a hug.”





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  • Legislature must tackle sex discrimination and harassment on college campuses

    Legislature must tackle sex discrimination and harassment on college campuses


    Yin Yang /iStock

    Addressing and preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment on college campuses continues to be one of the most foundational challenges to improving campus climate at higher education institutions in our country.

    In the fall of 2021, as the Biden-Harris administration began its reexamination of Title IX, the federal regulation that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education, the Assembly Higher Education Committee also began its own reexamination of California’s policies to address and prevent sex discrimination and sexual harassment in higher education.

    Three years later, the Higher Education Committee released a 30-plus page report that revealed we are not doing nearly enough to support our public higher education institutions to create an inclusive and safe campus culture for our students, faculty and staff.

    While each public higher education institution does have a nondiscrimination policy in place, it is clear that our campus communities do not trust these institutions to prevent nor properly handle sex discrimination and sexual harassment on campus. According to interviews conducted by the committee and various surveys of students and faculty, campus communities feel that current policy focuses on protecting higher education institutions and not survivors of sexual discrimination and harassment.

    It is the responsibility of campus leadership to provide our students with a safe and inclusive environment; however, the Legislature also has a responsibility to support our institutions in that mission, and to hold them accountable if they fall short.

    My bills, Assembly Bill (AB) 2047 and AB 2048 are a necessary step that the Legislature must take in order to support California’s higher education institutions and its campus communities.

    These two bills are a part of an ambitious, 12-bill legislative package, authored by myself and seven of my legislative colleagues, and predominantly based on recommendations from the committee’s report.

    The package as a whole is imperative in order to foster cultural change, accountability and trust at our higher education institutions. AB 2047 and AB 2048 focus on shifting campus culture and renewing trust.

    AB 2047 will establish an independent systemwide Title IX office to assist with monitoring compliance throughout all three of California’s higher education segments, and AB 2048 will establish an independent Title IX office on each California State University and University of California campus, and in each community college district.

    These offices, both on campus and at the systemwide level, will provide supportive measures to survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination and adjudicate cases in a clear and transparent manner. Furthermore, these bills will work in tandem with the overall legislative package to provide reporting measures to ensure the higher education institutions are preventing and addressing cases of sex discrimination.

    The importance of creating an identifiable authority that will properly adjudicate cases of sex discrimination and implement preventative measures cannot be minimized. These bills will renew community trust in our public institutions and establish a campus culture primed to detect, prevent and address all forms of sex discrimination and harassment with supportive measures and restorative justice. 

    AB 2047 and AB 2048 will provide substantial change for survivors of sexual harassment, but they will also result in substantial monetary cost from the state’s general fund, possibly costing millions of dollars, in order to establish and staff these offices.

    As we are confronted with a significant budget deficit this year, difficult policy decisions will be made, but these bills should be a priority for the Legislature.

    Fundamental change is costly, and as we assess the true costs of these bills and the impact they will have on our state, we must also not forget to consider the cost of doing nothing: the human cost of students who do not feel safe at these institutions and may not be able to experience all that higher education has to offer. The cost of those who carry invisible wounds and do not achieve their full educational potential.

    I am a firm believer in the power and promise of higher education and its ability to transform lives and communities. No student should be deprived of that power and promise due to sex discrimination or sexual harassment.

    We are falling short of our responsibility to these campus communities by further allowing this status quo of handling complaints through costly monetary settlements and lawsuits to remain.

    We cannot let this continue.

    •••

    Mike Fong (D-Alhambra) represents California’s 49th Assembly District and serves as chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

    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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  • Adult education on K-12 campuses is so much more than you might guess

    Adult education on K-12 campuses is so much more than you might guess


    Adult education students at Huntington Beach Adult School in the Huntington Beach Union School District

    Credit: Jorge Van Dyck / Huntington Beach Adult School

    There’s an incredibly important program that takes place in the back lots of a number of K-12 school sites.

    Adult Education serves students aged 18 and over in English as a second language (ESL), citizenship, adult basic education/adult secondary education (diploma and GED), and short-term career technical Education (CTE).

    But their services to the schools they are housed in and the surrounding community are so much more. In fact, adult education staff and supporters have been espousing the benefits associated with Community Schools before the term became popular. They are that link schools don’t know they have to make sure parents know about and attend their District English Language Advisory Committee to help plan how funds will be used to support English learners, and they are often the link to immigration attorneys, financial literacy programs and a bridge to the training that so many parents of K-12 students end up needing.

    Adult education also benefits students in the K-12 system. To put it simply, our immigrant students have immigrant parents, and assisting parents in learning the language and the school system’s processes in an English learner class is bound to pay off for the child as well. Also, offering short-term career technical education classes for those same parents to transition into once they have a grasp of the language (like in this medical assistant IET – integrated education and training program) is ultimately going to provide a more financially stable family structure that, again, benefits the child attending our K-12 schools. Finally, no matter how many redundant systems we put into K-12, students do drop out, and adult schools provide a place for that student to come back and finish their diploma or high school equivalency.

    Yes, these folks are flexible, and their services complement the goals of our K-12 districts, which is likely why a decision was made a long time ago to house adult education within these institutions.

    Unfortunately, flexibility is also a sore spot for adult educators. When the state budget gets pinched, adult education feels it first. In 2008-09, that meant cuts of 15% and 20%, and when the state government allowed for categorical programs — which previously could only be used for specific purposes — to be used flexibly, adult education funds were used to keep K-12 programs going, and many adult programs were decreased or even lost. By 2013-14, the Legislature introduced a package to eliminate school district categorical programs that targeted funding for adult education but salvage the adult education system by requiring districts to move into consortia beginning in 2015-16, joining community colleges and K-12 adult schools together in offering non-credit adult education. Schools moving to this system were asked to maintain 2011-12 levels of spending on adult education, which by then was at about 50% of 2008-09 levels.

    So, it is understandable when an adult educator winces at the word “flexibility” and would rather it not even be mentioned in these bleak financial times. But the good news for California, its schools, and communities around those schools, is that California still supports its adult education system like no other state. The budget for adult education has actually grown in recent years. And, despite a recent Legislative Analyst Office report second guessing the funding structure it helped to create, adult educators feel the more they let folks know about the incredible wraparound services they provide for adults and children in the K-12 districts that are lucky enough to house them, then the more likely it will be for that elusive respect to be gained and programs sustained into the distant future.

    The fundamental tasks of adult education are widely agreed upon and supported, even if many K-12 educators don’t know exactly what happens in those beige portables at the edge of their campus.

    As alluded to at the start, those classes for adults are often tucked away in corners of larger campuses that are hard to find, and some forget they are there, and that’s generally OK with those who work there, since adult school employees know the value of their work is about so much more than that; they are flexible. They know that being right there on the campus where adult school parents’ kids attend is a great start.

    Going back and forth between different sets and shades of beige portables on the four different campuses where Huntington Beach Adult School provides ESL classes, I have an appreciation for the often slighted portable and feel compelled to steal from William Carlos Williams to bring an end to this musing on the value of adult education.

    So much depends upon

    the beige portables

    at the edge of campus

    glazed in floodlights

    filled with adult students

    Credit: Jorge Van Dyck / Huntington Beach Adult School

    •••

    Philip Villamor is an assistant principal at Huntington Beach Adult School, which is a part of the Huntington Beach Union High School District.

    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 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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