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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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  • As White House wavers on visas, Chinese students at California colleges face uncertainty and worried parents

    As White House wavers on visas, Chinese students at California colleges face uncertainty and worried parents


    Top Takeaways
    • About 18,000 Chinese students are enrolled at the University of California, 2,600 at California community colleges and 850 at California State University.
    • Chinese students have increasingly chosen colleges outside the U.S., including closer to home in Hong Kong and Singapore.
    • Like all international students, Chinese students can be a valuable source of tuition for public universities, since they pay more than California residents.

    A flurry of at-times contradictory White House pronouncements are stoking confusion and concern among the 50,000 Chinese nationals who are studying at California’s colleges and universities — and potentially steering students away from further work and study in the U.S.

    Recent shifts in U.S. policy toward China have cast a “cloud of suspicion” over Chinese students, said Gisela Perez Kusakawa, the executive director of the Asian American Scholar Forum, an advocacy group.

    “Let’s say you invested all this time, money and energy and years of your life studying to get into a prominent university here in the U.S.,” she said. “You get in, [but] now it’s no longer guaranteed that you could actually finish that degree.” 

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a two-sentence statement on May 28 that the U.S. would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” He also pledged to “enhance scrutiny” of future visa applications from China and Hong Kong. 

    But the proposal for stronger visa enforcement appears to have been short-lived. On June 11, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would allow Chinese students into colleges and universities as part of a trade truce with China. 

    The flip from crackdown to rapprochement is one of the latest flash points in a volatile period for Chinese students. Even before Trump’s second term, fewer Chinese students were coming to American universities, data show. International students on U.S. college campuses have experienced a tumultuous spring term as the Trump administration first terminated and later said it would restore thousands of international students’ records in a federal database. The State Department in May paused new student visa interviews but said Wednesday it would resume processing and require applicants to make social media accounts public for government review. 

    V., a Chinese national student at UC Davis, who requested that EdSource withhold his full name in light of uncertain U.S. immigration policy, said the reelection of Trump has made him “a little bit afraid of speaking out.” 

    “I’m more conscious about, if I speak online or on social media, maybe I’ll get deported,” he said, even though he generally avoids posting anything political online.

    Though he hopes to continue working in the U.S. when he graduates this summer, V. knows several Chinese students who also attended American colleges as undergraduates and initially intended to pursue graduate degrees in the U.S., but are now continuing their education in other foreign countries instead.

    The ebb and flow of Chinese students is of particular interest to higher education institutions in California. China accounts for 36% of all international enrollment in the state, according to the Institute of International Education, making it California’s single-largest country of origin for international students. Nearly 18,000 Chinese international students are enrolled at the University of California, almost 6,000 at the University of Southern California, about 2,600 across the state’s community colleges and roughly 850 at California State University. 

    Those students bring with them coveted tuition dollars, a boon to the state’s public universities, where international students pay a premium over the rate charged to California residents.

    California universities responded to the Trump administration’s statements on Chinese student visas with expressions of support for international students from China. A written statement from the UC system on June 11 said the public university system “is concerned about the U.S. State Department’s announcement to revoke visas of Chinese students.” The statement said international students and scholars are “vital members of our university community and contribute greatly to our research, teaching, patient care and public service mission.”

    If Chinese students were to stop attending U.S. colleges and universities, their absence would be felt across academic disciplines. More than a fifth of Chinese students in the U.S. studied math and computer science, roughly 17% pursued engineering and almost 13% sought degrees in business and management, according to 2023-24 data from the Institute of International Education. 

    Chinese students are most heavily enrolled in U.S. graduate programs. Roughly 123,000 Chinese nationals studying at U.S. colleges and universities — about 44% of all Chinese students in the U.S. — are graduate students.

    Sources interviewed for this story emphasized that Chinese students are weighing not only the immediate twists and turns of U.S. foreign policy, but longer-term concerns about cost of living and the draw of preferable options closer to home. They also noted that restrictions on Chinese students are consistent with policies Trump pursued during his first term.

    ‘Our parents are super, super worried’

    A Chinese international student at the University of Southern California who graduated from a Ph.D. program in May said he has become accustomed to exchanging concerned text messages with friends whenever news of possible changes to U.S. immigration policy breaks. EdSource agreed to withhold his full name due to his concerns about increased scrutiny on international students. 

    “I’ve gotten texts from people saying, ‘Oh, are you OK? Are you safe?’ I’ve got people checking on each other, asking them, ‘So what can happen to the current visa holders? And if I already scheduled [a visa interview], will I still be able to go?’” he said.

    Already, he added, peers in China are contemplating pursuing their degrees in the United Kingdom or Australia as alternatives to the U.S. The student himself is applying for Optional Practical Training, which allows eligible international students to extend their time in the U.S. after completing an academic program.

    Meanwhile, at UC Davis, V. has found something like a second home. He has joined a sports team, pledged a fraternity and played an instrument in a school-affiliated band. Contrary to the stereotypes of U.S. cities as plagued by gun violence and crime that are common in Chinese media, he has found Davis to be peaceful, diverse and open-hearted. 

    But with the latest vacillations in U.S. immigration policy, concern is growing at home among Chinese students’ families. “Our parents are super, super worried,” he said, something evident whenever he checks a group chat where the parents of Chinese students in the U.S. share their questions and concerns. 

    A gradual slide in Chinese students at U.S. colleges

    There are ample signs that Chinese students have been cooling on American degrees long before Trump’s return to office this year.

    Data from the Institute of International Education show that the number of Chinese students in the U.S. increased rapidly during the 2000s, a trend that continued at a slower pace through the early years of the first Trump administration.

    But the number of Chinese internationals at U.S. institutions began to drop with the onset of Covid-19 and has continued to fall since. As of the 2023-24 school year, there were more than 277,000 Chinese students in the U.S., down more than 95,000 students from pre-pandemic levels in 2019-20.

    Several experts interviewed for this story framed the Trump administration’s recent statements about Chinese students as the latest of several policy changes that may discourage Chinese students from attending college in the U.S.

    As early as 2018, U.S. consular officials said they would shorten the duration of visas to Chinese students studying advanced manufacturing, robotics and aeronautics from five years to one, forcing students to seek annual renewals instead. Then, in 2020, Trump signed a presidential proclamation suspending the entry of Chinese students and researchers deemed to have links with the Chinese military, prompting the U.S. to revoke the visas of 1,000 Chinese nationals. 

    After Trump left office in 2021, Biden administration Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken struck a more conciliatory tone regarding Chinese students in the U.S., saying in a May 2022 speech that the U.S. “can stay vigilant about our national security without closing our doors.” And during a November 2023 meeting, former President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expressed a commitment to more educational exchanges.

    But the Biden administration initially continued a Department of Justice (DOJ) initiative launched under Trump in 2018, which targeted Chinese researchers accused of stealing American intellectual property. The Biden DOJ ended the program in 2022 following concerns about racial profiling.

    And in March 2024, before Trump’s return to office, reports surfaced that more than a dozen Chinese students were denied reentry into the U.S. despite holding a valid visa, while others reported being searched and questioned for hours at the U.S. border. The State Department told The Washington Post at the time that the number of Chinese students found to be inadmissible for entry had been stable in recent years.

    ‘We are still hoping it’s getting better’

    Geopolitical concerns are not the only reasons some Chinese students may think twice about studying at U.S. colleges and universities. 

    Al Wang, the general manager of Wiseway Global, which recruits Chinese students to study in other countries, said that Chinese students may not apply to certain U.S. institutions because rankings of the best universities in the world tend to score institutions in countries like the United Kingdom and Singapore above U.S. rivals. In addition, he said, Chinese students may choose to stay home for college, seeing joint-degree programs in China with U.S. universities like Duke as a more economical option.

    Wang nonetheless anticipates that the U.S. and China will continue cooperating on education and cultural exchange programs, something the Chinese Ministry of Education has encouraged. He predicted that more Chinese students will study abroad in the U.S. for a school term or summer intensive, rather than enrolling in degree programs. “We are still hoping it’s getting better, but we don’t know where it’s going,” he said. 

    The Chinese international student at USC suggested that U.S. universities aiming to maintain their international student population should focus on providing legal support, security and a sense of belonging. Failing that, he added, it won’t take long for current students to warn would-be classmates. 

    “They’re going to tell their peers from high school, or they’re going to tell people from home, ‘Oh, don’t come,’” he said.





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  • Rainy day fund would bail out schools, community colleges in Newsom’s 2024-25 state budget

    Rainy day fund would bail out schools, community colleges in Newsom’s 2024-25 state budget


    Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses his proposed state budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, during a news conference in Sacramento on Jan. 10, 2024.

    Credit: Office of the Governor

    Gov. Gavin Newsom would protect schools and community colleges from the brunt of an $11.3 billion projected drop in state revenue for education, under a proposed 2024-25 state budget he released on Wednesday. The budget calls for covering all current levels of funding and existing commitments for new and expanded programs, plus a less than 1% cost-of-living increase for next year.

    The three-year decline in revenue, both for schools and the overall $38.7 billion in the state general fund, is $30 billion less than the Legislative Analyst’s Office had projected a month ago, easing the burden of balancing the budget and avoiding the possibility of drastic budget cuts or late payments — at least for community colleges and TK-12.

    However, Newsom is proposing to defer the promised 5% increases in revenue to both the University of California and California State University systems. UC and CSU would borrow that funding this year and get reimbursed in next year’s budget.

    “We are deferring but not delaying, and there’s a distinction in the law that will allow UC and CSU just for one year to be able to borrow against that commitment,” Newsom said.

    Newsom would protect schools and community colleges by withdrawing about $7 billion from the $10.8 billion TK-14 rainy day fund to cover the current year’s shortfall and meet the minimum obligation in 2024-25. The state would not seek reimbursement for what turned out to be funding above the minimum Proposition 98 statutory obligation for the prior two years.

    Proposition 98 is the funding formula determining the portion of the state’s general fund that must be spent on TK-12 and community colleges. With the addition of transitional kindergarten, that share will rise about one percentage point to 39.5% of the general fund. In 2024-25, Proposition 98 funds will be $109.1 billion. That would be about $3.5 billion more than the revised projection for 2023-24, reflecting expectations of improved state revenues in the next fiscal year.

    The Legislature was handicapped when it passed the 2023-24 budget last June. There were indications but no hard numbers that economic conditions were worsening, because the deadline for paying state and federal income taxes had been extended from April 15 to Oct. 16 in response to massive flooding last winter. As it turned out, state revenues had fallen sharply from slower home sales, a drop in new startups in Silicon Valley, and declining income of the top 1% of earners, who contribute 50% of the personal income tax receipts.

    But with the stock market rebounding since then, Newsom said more optimistic revenue projections for next year and savings in state government operations would account for two-thirds of the difference between the state Department of Finance revenue projections and the legislative analyst’s forecast. A remedy for dealing with a two-year, $10-plus billion drop in Proposition 98 funding would account for the rest of the disparity. In a news conference, Newsom chided the “ready, fire, aim” projections of the news media and others for assuming a more dire financial outlook without the latest data.

    Many districts, nonetheless, will face financial stress. More than two-thirds are facing declining enrollment, which will lower their share of state funding. And the 1% inflation adjustment for 2024-25 will not cover cost increases and, for some districts, negotiated staff raises. Districts are receiving an 8% cost-of-living adjustment this year, down from a 13% bump in 2022-23.

    Newsom’s January budget will now undergo six months of negotiations with the Legislature over their priorities. Revenue updates by June will reveal whether his optimism will hold up, and what the Legislature must do if it doesn’t.

    Newsom reiterated that the state would uphold its education commitments to schools using record post-Covid revenues. These include the addition of transitional kindergarten and appropriating $8 billion combined to create community schools and add summer programs and after-school hours for low-income students.  These would continue to be funded at promised levels.

    Also surviving is an additional $300 million for the state’s poorest schools. The governor said that this proposal, known as an “equity multiplier,” is also a high priority by the California Legislative Black Caucus. Another priority that Newsom mentioned is funding for the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.

    “In the face of a large deficit, it’s reassuring that the governor committed to maintaining his transformative investments in education, including community schools, universal TK, and the equity multiplier,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney for the student advocacy nonprofit Public Advocates. “That the governor particularly called them out with a ‘don’t touch’ message to the Legislature indicates he’ll fight hard to maintain them.”

    New ideas for mitigating student absences

    Despite $6 billion in one-time state funding for post-pandemic learning recovery, chronic absences soared to 30% in 2022-23 and remained high last year. Statewide post-pandemic test scores also plummeted in math and English language arts in 2022-23 statewide and almost remained flat last year.

    Recognizing that students can’t learn when they aren’t in school, Newsom is proposing changes in the law that will allow school districts to provide attendance recovery programs in response to chronic absences and loss in learning because of floods, wildfires and other climate conditions. Districts, in turn, would benefit from offsetting revenues lost from student absences. The new law would specify that districts could fund Saturday programs and intercessions to respond to students with many absences.

    Districts would be required to offer students access to remote instruction, including enabling families to enroll in neighboring districts “for emergencies” lasting five or more days. A budget trailer bill will spell out details, including whether students could seek tutoring under this option.

    The budget calls for $6 million to research hybrid and remote learning and develop new models.

    “We have to use the experiences of recent years to think forward for ensuring that kids can gain access to the learning and instructional opportunities that they deserve,” said Hedy Chang, founder and executive director of Attendance Works, a group that tracks chronic absenteeism.

    Addressing a teacher shortage

    Newsom also proposes to relax some requirements to become a teacher, due to a persistent teacher shortage. Teacher candidates will no longer have to take a test or coursework to prove they have the basic skills to earn a credential, according to the state summary of the budget. The state will now recognize completion of a bachelor’s degree as satisfying the basic-skills requirement.

    Currently, teacher candidates must pass the California Basic Educational Skills Test, a combination of other tests, or complete specific coursework to prove they have the basic skills to teach. The CBEST tests reading, math and writing skills and is usually taken before a student is accepted into a teacher preparation program.

    The governor’s budget calls for streamlining the process of credentialing aspiring arts teachers in response to the passage of Proposition 28, the groundbreaking arts education initiative. It directs the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to create a new Elementary Arts and Music Education authorization for career technical education teachers. This pathway currently only exists for secondary education, and many arts education advocates have pressed to expand it to elementary school classrooms.

    “Governor Newsom’s proposal is an important step in the right direction,” said Austin Beutner, the former superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, who authored Proposition 28. “The money from Prop 28 is the enabler, but students will only benefit when schools use it to hire great arts teachers in all grade levels.”

    The budget summary also refers to several other proposals that will make it easier to become a teacher, although it offered no additional details about those proposals.

    The budget proposal also includes:

    • $20 million as the first step toward implementing the long-debated math framework that the State Board of Education adopted last July. A county office of education would be chosen to work with math experts and nonprofits to train math coaches and leaders, who in turn would teach high-quality instruction. State law would spell out that existing state learning loss funding should focus on teacher training in math.
    • $5 million to increase support for the California Cradle-to-Career Data System.
    • $122 million to increase funding for universal school meals.

    The budget contains good and bad news for districts seeking immediate funding for facilities. Newsom would reduce the General Fund by delaying $550 million for new and retrofitted facilities for adding transitional kindergarten. And he proposes to cut $500 million he committed to the state School Facilities Program, which has run out of state funding. However, Newsom committed to negotiate a multibillion-dollar school facilities bond with the Legislature for the November 2024 ballot.

    Questions on the size of the bond needed to win voter support and whether it should include higher education must be answered, Newsom said. “All that’s being worked on, but a real issue to address is that we’ve exhausted the previous bond, and it’s important to advance a new one.”

    Higher education

    In 2022, Newsom made agreements with both UC and CSU to give annual 5% base funding increases over five years in exchange for increasing enrollment and improving graduation rates.

    Under his latest proposal, UC and CSU would borrow a combined $499 million this year — $258.8 million for UC and $240.2 million for CSU. That includes this year’s 5% increase for the systems as well as $31 million for UC to increase enrollment of resident undergraduate students.

    If lawmakers agree to Newsom’s plan, the two systems would receive two years’ worth of 5% budget increases in next year’s state budget to make up for this year’s deferrals.

    “These decisions will position our state and its students for a prosperous future once budgetary challenges subside,” Michael Drake, UC’s systemwide president, said in a statement Wednesday. “During economic downturns, the University of California’s role in California’s economic development is even more important, and we are grateful to state leaders for their visionary leadership and commitment to maintaining the funding compact.”

    Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia said that given the state’s financial challenges, the governor’s plan acknowledges his financial commitment to CSU students while also attempting to address the state’s budget situation. But the proposal also puts the system in a precarious position. 

    “This proposal would deliver the same level of funding per fiscal year as originally outlined in the compact, although with additional risk to the CSU if the state’s budget condition further erodes and the state cannot fulfill this restructured commitment,” Garcia said. “We will explore our funding options to advance compact-related goals during the one-year delay and will proceed with financial prudence as we review the impacts and implications of this budget proposal.” 

    Newsom’s spending plan would not fund a significant expansion of the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid program. He and lawmakers agreed in 2022 to overhaul the Cal Grant beginning in 2024-25 by simplifying the awards and extending eligibility to more students, but only if state revenues were sufficient to do so. With the state facing a shortfall, the governor is not committing funding to that expansion, though negotiations on the issue are expected to continue through the spring. A spokesperson for Newsom’s Department of Finance said Wednesday that the department will wait until May to make a final determination.

    Newsom also proposed doing away with a program that would provide interest-free loans to colleges and universities to build affordable student housing. In total, that would save $494 million for the state’s 2024-25 budget: $194 million that was appropriated last year plus $300 million this and every year through 2028-29.

    Mike Fong, chair of the Assembly’s higher education committee, said in a statement that he’s disappointed that Newsom proposed eliminating the Student Housing Revolving Loan Fund and didn’t include funding to reform the Cal Grant. 

    “We must continue to find new ways to increase accessibility to higher education, especially for our most vulnerable communities who need these vital resources to complete higher education,” Fong said.

    Early education   

    The budget largely holds steady for early education and child care. It maintains ongoing funding for the newly expanded transitional kindergarten program for 4-year-olds and earmarks $1.7 billion toward long-awaited increased pay for child care providers. It also continues to gradually add subsidized child care slots, with about $2 billion going to fund about 146,000 new slots to be filled by 2024-25, toward an ultimate goal of 200,000 new slots.

    “Overall, the proposed budget stays true to the historic investments California has made in pre-K and child care,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit organization that runs many Bay Area child care and preschool centers. “Yet schools and child care providers are struggling to expand due to a lack of staff, facilities funding, and post-pandemic challenges. We must do more now to support this growth, otherwise low-income babies and preschoolers will be left out.”

    EdSource reporters Michael Burke, Ashley S. Smith, Mallika Seshadri, Betty Márquez Rosales, Karen D’Souza, Diana Lambert and Emma Gallegos contributed to the article. 





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  • Newsom’s $8 billion fix to spare cuts to schools, community colleges may face tough sell

    Newsom’s $8 billion fix to spare cuts to schools, community colleges may face tough sell


    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

    Gov. Gavin Newsom buoyed the hopes of school district and community college educators this month when, despite a sizable three-year decline in state revenue, he promised to protect schools and colleges from cuts and to uphold future spending commitments.

    They might want to hold their applause until after the last act, when the Legislature passes the 2024-25 budget in June.

    In an analysis of the state budget, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) cautioned that there are questions about how Newsom plans to close $8 billion of a huge revenue shortfall facing schools and community colleges.

    Beyond meeting this challenge, the LAO also urged legislators to start planning for education spending beyond 2024-25, when flat or declining revenues are expected to raise difficult financial choices. They could pit funding of ongoing expenses against sustaining ambitious programs like summer and after-school programs for low-income students, additional community schools, money for teacher training in early literacy and math, and confronting post-pandemic learning setbacks.

    “The state faces significant operating deficits in the coming years, which are the result of lower revenue estimates, as well as increased cost pressures,” the analyst said.

    But the immediate enigma is Newsom’s strategy for the $8 billion.

    Newsom is projecting that state revenues to run schools and community colleges will be short $14.3 billion over three years: the budget year that ended in 2022-23, the current budget year of 2023-24, and the coming year. That number is calculated as revenue through Proposition 98, the formula that determines the proportion of the state’s general fund that must be spent on schools and community colleges — about 40%.

    Proposition 98 revenues are sometimes close but never exactly what a governor and the Legislature assume when they approve a budget. Revenues for the past and current years exceed or fall short of what they projected and not what they predict for the year ahead.  

    Budget analysts were particularly handicapped when calculating the 2023-24 budget. They didn’t anticipate the shortfall from 2022-23 and didn’t discover it until fall 2023, because of a six-month delay in the filing deadline for 2022 tax returns.

    Newsom is proposing to divert $5.7 billion from the Proposition 98 rainy day fund to fill in the current year’s deficit as well as what’s needed to sustain a flat budget, plus a small cost of living increase, for 2024-25. Draining the rainy day fund would require the Legislature’s OK.

    The remainder — and biggest piece — is the $9 billion revenue shortfall from 2022-23, which would be $8 billion after other automatic adjustments. That shortfall is technically an overpayment beyond the statutory minimum Proposition 98 funding guarantee. It fell dramatically from what the Legislature adopted in June 2022 to $98.3 billion that revenue actually produced. The biggest decline was in income tax receipts on the top 1% of earners.

    School districts have already spent funding from 2022–23, including on staff pay raises that they negotiated with good faith estimates. Newsom and the Legislature could try to deduct that overpayment from the current and 2024-25 budgets, but such a move “would be devastating for students and staff,” Patti Herrera, vice president of the school consulting firm California School Services, told a workshop last week with more than 1,000 school district administrators in Sacramento.

    As an alternative, Newsom proposes to find reductions from the non-Proposition 98 side of the general fund, which covers higher education, child care and all other non-education expenses, from prisons to climate change programs.

    “We are super grateful there will be no attempts to claw back” the money given to school districts in a past year’s budget, Herrera said.

    Newsom’s challenge is to make districts and community colleges financially whole without increasing the minimum Proposition 98 guarantee. Raising Proposition 98 could create a bigger obligation in the future, including potential deficits after 2024-25 — unless the Legislature raises taxes, a nonstarter in an election year.

    How Newsom is going to do this is a mystery. The one-sentence reference to it in his budget summary says only, “The Budget proposes statutory changes to address roughly $8 billion of this decrease to avoid impacting existing LEA (school districts) and community college district budgets.”

    Both the LAO and School Services said it’s their understanding from the Department of Finance that the payments from the general fund to cover the Proposition 98 overpayment would be made over five years, starting in 2025-26.

    “We have some questions about that proposal. Probably the most pressing one is how is the state going to use revenue that it’s not going to collect for several years to address a funding shortfall that exists right now,” said Ken Kapphahn, the LAO’s principal fiscal and policy analyst for TK-12 education.

    The questions are legal and political. The proposed statutory language, which may be released in a trailer bill in the coming weeks, will reveal how the state Department of Finance will finesse postponing balancing the 2022-23 budget that’s $8 billion out of kilter. Budget hearings next week in the Capitol may indicate how receptive legislative leaders are to further reducing general fund spending, which also is feeling a financial squeeze.

    A search for the extra $8 billion

    Additionally, Newsom is proposing several billion dollars of accounting maneuvers that will book spending in 2024-25 but delay and defer payments for programs and some state salaries until early 2025-26.  Included are $500 million in deferred reimbursements to the University of California and California State University for the 5% budget increase that Newsom committed to funding in 2024-25.

    “Many of these solutions involve moving costs to next year. That is one reason we have the state looking at a large deficit, not just this year, but the following year,” Kapphahn said. “I can’t recall another situation quite like this.”

    Barring a recession, which neither LAO nor the Newsom administration is forecasting, both Newsom and the administration are projecting general fund deficits averaging about $30 billion annually in the three years after 2024-25. Pushing the $8 billion solution for the 2022-23 Proposition 98 deficit, along with other general fund delays and deferrals into those years will compound difficult choices, according to the LAO.

    “Overall, the governor’s budget runs the risk of understating the degree of fiscal pressure facing the state in the future,” the LAO analysis said.

    The LAO suggested other options for resolving the 2022-23 deficit. It recommended applying the remaining $3.8 billion from the Proposition 98 reserve fund that Newsom hasn’t touched and looking for reductions in unallocated one-time funding such as an unused $1 billion for community schools and canceling $500 million for electric school buses. 

    Even with no cuts to Proposition 98 next year, many school districts and charter schools will likely face their own deficits in 2024-25. That’s because the projected cost-of-living adjustment for next year will not be enough to cover the loss of revenue from declining enrollments. The COLA, tied to a federal formula measuring goods and services bought by state and local governments and not consumer products, is currently projected to be 0.76%; it would be the lowest increase in 40 years, with one exception, the year after the Great Recession, in 2009. This would come on the heels of two years of near record-high COLAs of 6.6% and 8.2%.

    The analyst’s office projects the COLA may inch up to 1% by June, when the budget is set. At that rate, a hypothetical school district with 10,000 students would see declining revenues with an enrollment decline of only about 100 students.

    Paso Robles Joint Unified School District in San Luis Obispo County, with about 6,000 students, is among those with declining enrollment since the pandemic. As a result, the district, with about 800 full-time employees, anticipates a reduction of five full-time staff members in 2024-25 and perhaps 40 layoff notices the following year, said Brad Pawlowski, the assistant superintendent for business services.

    Pawlowski said he came away encouraged after School Services’ presentation that schools will be spared cuts in the next budget, while acknowledging it’s a long time between now and the budget’s adoption.

    “We have seen a common message between the governor and the Legislature to protect education. And that does make me feel good,” he said. But doing so, he added, “will mean finding other ways to make that up outside of Prop. 98. That’s going to be the real challenge.”





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  • Colleges overlook the potential of students who didn’t finish their degree, study says

    Colleges overlook the potential of students who didn’t finish their degree, study says


    Shasta College serves students in Shasta, Tehama and Trinity counties.

    A new study detailing how California colleges often overlook the value of students who drop out explains what colleges can do to help these students, called “comebackers,” complete their degree successfully. 

    Instead of simplifying the return for these students, colleges often complicate the process and create obstacles, according to a report, “From Setback to Success: Meeting Comebacker Students Where They Are” by California Competes, a nonpartisan policy and research organization.

    “If you didn’t make it, it’s your fault. If you want to come back, good luck to you,” said Su Jin Jez, CEO of California Competes, about the convoluted process that comebackers go through to re-enroll in college.

    Based on interviews with over 50 students who returned to college and successfully completed their degree at Sacramento State and Shasta College, the report released on Feb. 5 identified factors that may impede a student’s attempt to return to college, including owing for overdue library books and parking, having to redo the entire enrollment process and being disqualified for financial aid because of poor grades from years prior. 

    More than 6 million Californians have attended college without ever receiving a degree, according to a 2021 report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Jez said that reaching out to these students is an equity issue because many comebackers are low-income people or people of color. 

    Overlooking these students has major implications, not just for students themselves but for the state’s economy, the report states. Students without a degree or certificate may not be able to make progress in the workplace, and in turn, employers won’t be able to find qualified workers. Jez said reaching these students can stimulate economic growth.

    Jennifer Liberty, one of the co-researchers who helped design the study, is a comebacker herself; she is now working on a master’s degree in psychology.

    Other reasons contributing to students dropping out of college are having to work, taking care of children or family members, as well as institutional barriers like a loss of financial aid or an inflexible schedule — all of which may make balancing school with other priorities a struggle.

    Comebackers bring ‘so many skills’

    The report urges colleges to offer more flexibility in classes, do more to encourage students to return and reframe how comebackers are viewed.

    The conversation about students who stop attending college tends to be framed around their problems, said Buffy Tanner, director of innovation and special projects at Shasta College. They are discussed as students who lack recent academic experience, who have rusty math skills or have financial aid issues.

    “The reality is they come to us with so many skills,” Tanner said during a webinar on the report.

    People who stop coming to school typically have a lot of work experience that other kinds of students lack. They know how to work in groups and how to work for different bosses; they have professional experience; and sometimes professional development. These are all assets in college, Tanner said.

    Many comebackers may give up their studies after their grades start to slip and they are put on what is often called “academic probation.” The report recommends using language that isn’t associated with criminality. 

    “‘Academic probation’ sounds like, ‘You are a criminal, and we are going to keep an eye on you,’” Jez said.

    The report also recommends offering extra support to comebackers who struggle academically. Many of those who left on academic probation said that they were not offered help and that the term itself made them feel like they weren’t cut out for college. 

    Tanner said focusing on the needs of students who return to college after stopping has benefits for the broader population of students because they would also benefit from more flexible class schedules, such as classes that are offered outside the traditional workday. 

    Restructured academic calendars could also benefit other kinds of students. The report recommends offering shorter, more frequent classes, such as an eight-week intensive program, in contrast to a longer 16-week program, or a fall or spring term. This makes it easier for students to fit classes into their schedule and gives them more opportunities to jump into college.

    Enrollment at California’s community colleges has not fully rebounded from the pandemic, Jez noted. This pool of students with some college experience but no degree or certificate is potent as the state faces its big goals around issues such as climate change and housing.

    “We can’t meet our goals,” Jez said, “unless we allow marginalized people to access and complete college degrees.”





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  • Legislative analyst projects bigger funding drop for schools, community colleges

    Legislative analyst projects bigger funding drop for schools, community colleges


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    The Legislative Analyst’s Office is warning superintendents and school boards working on their next year’s budget that more storm clouds are on the fiscal horizon. 

    In a Feb. 15 report, the LAO forecast that further erosion of state revenues will likely reduce state funding for TK-12 by an additional $7.7 billion — $5.2 billion in 2023-24 and $2.7 billion in 2025-26. That would be on top of the $13.7 billion shaving that Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in his proposed budget for the current budget cycle that he released just a month ago. 

    When he presented the proposed state budget in January, Newsom built in a small cost-of-living increase and vowed to preserve funding commitments for schools and community colleges, but the deteriorating revenue estimates may force him to reconsider that promise when he revises the budget in May. 

    The California Department of Finance, which disagrees with the LAO’s financial projections for this year and next, won’t revise its budget forecast until the May revision. However, its report on January revenues, also released in mid-February, confirmed that revenues were heading in the wrong direction. Receipts from the personal income tax, the largest source of state revenue, were down $5 billion — 25% — from the $20.4 billion that the state had forecast. For the full fiscal year that started July 1, total state revenues are down $5.9 billion from a forecast of $121.5 billion.  

    About 40% of the revenues to the state’s general fund is directed to schools and community colleges through a 4-decade-old formula, Proposition 98.

    The single biggest fiscal challenge facing Newsom and the Legislature is how to resolve a massive shortfall in Proposition 98 funding for 2022-23. Newsom and the Legislature were mostly in the dark when they passed that state budget based on a revenue estimate in June 2022. Because of storms and floods the previous winter, the U.S. Treasury delayed the tax filing date for 2022 from April 15 to Nov. 16. Thus, officials lacked reliable data, and it turned out they were way off. The shortfall for Proposition 98 was $12 billion. 

    Because school districts have already spent that money, Newsom is proposing to hold them and community colleges harmless without counting the overfunding as part of the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee. In a trailer bill that his administration released, he calls for a one-time $9 billion supplemental payment that, due to the unique, delayed tax deadline, would be paid from the general fund, not out of current or future funding for Proposition 98. It would be repaid over five years, starting in 2025-26. 

    Opposition of the Legislative Analysts’s Office

    The LAO is skeptical of the legality and wisdom of pushing off the solution for the 2022-23 deficit into the future; it’s recommending the Legislature reject the ideas and instead use the $9 billion cushion in the Proposition 98 reserve account to cover the shortfall. 

    “The Governor’s proposed funding maneuver is bad fiscal policy, sets a problematic precedent, and creates a binding obligation on the state that will worsen future deficits and require more difficult decisions,” it said in a report issued last week. 

    It recommends balancing the budget by cutting billions of uncommitted dollars for new programs, the largest of which is $2.8 billion for creating more community schools; eliminating the $1 billion cost-of-living adjustment for the Local Control Funding Formula; cutting $500 million for low-emissions school buses and reducing costs and restructuring other programs. One is the Expanded Learning and Opportunities Program, which provides free after-school activities for low-income students. 

    Newsom would use $5 billion of the Proposition 98 rainy-day fund to cover the budget shortfall this year and next while paying for the 1% cost-of-living adjustment next year. That would leave $4 billion in the reserve to cover at least part of a bigger deficit that the LAO is predicting.

    Lurking in the background is the option of deferrals — issuing IOUs for funding that would be repaid in subsequent years. That tactic was used extensively after the Great Recession when state revenues plunged. It requires that districts and charter schools borrow short-term to cover the delay in state funding.

    School advocates clearly prefer Newsom’s approach and are critical of the LAO’s recommendations, although they aren’t ready to suggest further cuts if revenues remain slow.

    “We don’t want to start negotiating with ourselves over which programs to cut, but need to be prepared for a challenging budget if revenues do not rebound in the second half of this fiscal year,” Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, an education consultancy, wrote in a letter to his clients last week.

    Edgar Zazueta, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the LAO and called on Newsom and legislators to protect their investments in schools. 

    “The LAO’s recommendations in response to the fiscal picture are potentially devastating to schools and especially students,” he said. “The programs that could be impacted are good for students, and we’ll be urging the Legislature and governor to do everything to protect California students.”





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  • Increasing access can raise number of California students eligible for 4-year colleges, panel says

    Increasing access can raise number of California students eligible for 4-year colleges, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhH3-SDb0Io

    California high schools can increase the number of students completing college prep courses if they raise awareness and support student success, according to panelists at EdSource’s roundtable, Keeping options open: Why most students aren’t eligible to apply to California’s public universities.

    Throughout the discussion on Tuesday, the panelists explored why a majority of high school students fail to complete A-G requirements — courses they need to qualify for admission to the University of California or California State University systems — and offered ways that schools can help change that.  

    “I think we have a responsibility to raise the expectations and then lean in to making sure that we have the support in place for students to be successful in those expectations,” said Sherrie Reed Bennett, executive director of the California Education Lab at the UC Davis School of Education.

    Panelists agreed that the more options students have, the better their situation after graduation and that increasing access to college prep courses is crucial. 

    Michael R. McCormick, superintendent of Val Verde Unified, said that awareness should start well before students enter high school and that schools should create a college and career culture with events such as College Days or elementary school lessons on A-G courses. 

    But beyond awareness, high school students are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework, and parents and students, who often know little or nothing about these requirements, are left to figure it out on their own, panelists said.  

    “To expect people to go out and figure it out on their own is really difficult,” Delilah Brumer, a student at Los Angeles Pierce College, said about high school students not having the resources to learn about A-G requirements.

    Some schools also struggle with offering the A-G coursework or doing so in a way that supports students. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses.

    Although Brumer met her A-G requirements at a Los Angeles Unified school, she said the process was stressful and confusing. Her Career Technical Education courses often conflicted with her A-G courses, and she could only take some courses online. 

    Taking A-G and CTE courses shouldn’t be a matter of “either or,” Reed said, adding that districts should work to prevent those conflicts. For example, Val Verde Unified offered 42 career pathways and ensured that every course within each pathway was also A–G approved, according to Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) research in which Reed co-authored and cited during the roundtable.

    Whether college or career, the A-G courses are important for all students, no matter what their plans are after high school, panelists said.

    Systemic changes needed 

    Students planning to attend UC or CSU must complete the college preparatory courses known as A-G requirements — 15 courses in seven areas that overlap with the requirements for a high school diploma but are more rigorous.  

    More than half, 56%, of high school seniors failed to meet these requirements in 2023, meaning they were ineligible to apply to a California public university and may struggle at a community college.

    Research indicates that enrollment and completion rates on A-G courses vary across student groups and schools. In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis. The highest non-completion group was foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.

    It’s a multifaceted problem that requires systemic changes at a district, and possibly, statewide level, panelists said. 

    Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, program coordinator for the Heritage program at Victor Valley Union High School District, said schools must evaluate support through an equity lens because there are systemic barriers keeping African American and Latino students from qualifying for four-year universities. 

    With just 6% of Black students graduating with A-G courses at Adelanto High, Victor Valley started Heritage, an equity program that helps place students in A-G courses.  The program also educates families about college applications, financial aid and housing, spearheading school and districtwide changes, such as career advisers helping all students with UC and CSU applications. 

    “So many system changes needed to be made in order for all of our students, not just the African American students, to benefit,” Jackson-Jarrell said. “So a lot of things have changed because of this one equity program; they’re mirroring and changing the systems.” 

    PACE research found that at the school or district level, routine data analysis, such as comprehensive A-G course audits, can also help inform school and course-level changes to support students with meeting the requirements. 

    McCormick suggested that a default enrollment process in the A-G courses would guarantee all students have access and the opportunity to reach their dreams. 

    “If we can, through a policy solution or the stroke of the governor’s pen, decide that we need to teach cursive writing, why can we not do some sort of a policy solution for A-G?” he said.  “It seems like a viable path is there.”





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  • Can Virginia colleges offer a model to California on getting community college students to earn university degrees?

    Can Virginia colleges offer a model to California on getting community college students to earn university degrees?


    Steve Perez chats with a representative at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31.

    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    Steve Perez faced a daunting challenge as he considered where to attend college. 

    The first in his family to pursue a higher education, Perez was “basically all on my own.” Rejected from his top choice, Virginia Tech, he was considering community college near his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia. But he worried whether he would be able to successfully transfer to a four-year university, knowing it would be up to him to take the right courses and successfully apply for admission. 

    “No one in my family really knows anything about college,” he said. “That was really tough.”

    All of that changed when his high school counselor told him about ADVANCE, a partnership between Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University that is anchored by dual admission to both schools.

    Students start at the community college but are immediately accepted to George Mason before even taking their first community college class. The colleges also provide students up front with the full list of courses they need to earn their bachelor’s degree, a task that in other states is often left to students. 

    Northern Virginia Community College serves about 70,000 students across its six campuses in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., more than any other community college in the state. Likewise, George Mason is the largest public research university in Virginia with about 40,000 students, most of them commuters. Their main campuses separated by just 5 miles, Northern Virginia historically has sent more students to George Mason than any other community college.

    A statue of George Mason on the George Mason University campus in Fairfax.
    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    Officials say the ADVANCE program perfected that transfer partnership. Since launching in 2018, just over 1,500 students in the program have successfully transferred to Mason, including 415 this past fall. More than 90% of students in the program graduate within two years of transferring to Mason.

    The program stands out nationally, even earning kudos from the federal Department of Education for solving a widespread problem of a cumbersome transfer process that stymies students in community college.

    In California, most community college students who want to get a bachelor’s degree never transfer. Without adequate support, they often struggle to keep track of courses, ending up with too many credits but lacking required classes. One study found that as few as 2.5% of students intending to transfer do so within two years, and only 23% do so within four years.

    The Virginia program could serve as a model for California colleges. The state is in the early stages of adopting its own dual admission programs at both of its public university systems, the University of California and California State University. CSU’s program, open to far more students than UC’s, is especially exciting to college access advocates.

    Both programs launched this past fall, and officials are hopeful it will make transferring easier for students.

    Taking away the guesswork

    In Virginia, the idea of ADVANCE is to “take away the guesswork for students,” said Jen Nelson, the community college’s director of university transfer and initiatives. 

    Upon enrolling, students receive a link to a portal where they select one of 85 academic pathways, such as business, computer science or psychology. Based on their pathway, the portal then shows them all the classes they need to take to transfer and eventually earn a bachelor’s degree.

    “It provides that guarantee that if students take these classes, they’re going to transfer,” Nelson said. “It takes away that concern of, am I taking the right thing? Am I spending my time and money in the right way?”

    As long as they maintain at least a minimum grade point average — usually a 2.5 — students are automatically admitted to Mason. They don’t even need to fill out an application. 

    Along the way, students can meet with counselors who are hired specifically for the ADVANCE program. They also have full access to all the resources offered at Mason, including clubs, libraries and even health care.

    In Perez’s case, he chose a computer science pathway and this semester started his lower-division classes, which include general education, math and introductory computer science classes. He’s on track to transfer to George Mason within two years.

    At a recent resource fair for new students hosted on the Mason campus, Perez walked from table to table, learning about the resources offered by Mason, including club sports, mental health services and tutoring. He can participate in all of it now that he’s in the program.

    Steve Perez grabs a informational card at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31.
    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    “I’m really happy I chose this pathway because it gives me a great opportunity,” he said. “And it takes away the stress.”

    Not long before ADVANCE launched in 2018, Janette Muir remembers sitting in on an advising session at Northern Virginia for her son, who had recently graduated from high school.

    Muir, a professor and George Mason’s associate provost for academic initiatives at the time, was shocked to learn how confusing the transfer process was.

    Students received little guidance, and many were taking unnecessary courses. 

    “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so confusing for even a student who has professors as his parents,’” she said.

    Her son and other students, Muir said, needed more help. Muir started working with the presidents of both institutions to develop ADVANCE. 

    Janette Muir addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University in January.
    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    That year, the two colleges launched the program with 21 pathways. It has since grown to 85 pathways, and more than 4,500 students have enrolled since the program’s inception. 

    Any student can enroll so long as they have not completed more than 30 college credits, and students who do enroll tend to stick around. Among the students in the cohort that entered in fall 2021, 87% returned the following year, far better than the national average retention rate of 61%. 

    When they transfer to Mason, ADVANCE students on average graduate two semesters faster than non-ADVANCE transfer students. In fact, 92% of them graduate within two years of transferring. Students also finish an associate degree upon transferring, which officials say is important to ensure they have the necessary preparation in their major. 

    Muir, who now oversees ADVANCE in her role as Mason’s vice provost for academic affairs, said officials have started to expect students to finish the entire program in four years rather than six. 

    “When you come into this program and you follow the pathways, you do better and you finish sooner,” Muir told new students gathered at a welcome event in January. 

    For Jaden Todd, a second-year community college student in the program, having access to the pathways portal has been especially helpful. 

    When Todd first started college, learning certain classes would transfer to some universities but not others was a “big shocker.” He took a Western history class only to learn that it wouldn’t be accepted at another college he was considering, Virginia Commonwealth University, which required a world history course. 

    “There’s stuff like that where I spent several hundred dollars on a class just to be informed that I would have to retake a class in a similar area,” he said.

    When it comes to the courses he needs to transfer to and ultimately graduate from Mason, however, there are no surprises. 

    If students do have questions, they have access to counselors who have been hired specifically for the ADVANCE program. 

    Emma Howard, a sophomore who will transfer to Mason this fall, consulted her adviser after learning that one of her courses, which she thought qualified as an elective, wasn’t going to be transferable.

    The adviser called the transfer center at Mason and successfully convinced them to count the course, an acting for the camera class.

    “They really try to make your time here easier,” Howard said. “They bring a lot of ease and just faith in the matriculation process.”

    Eliminating the ‘transfer shock’

    When Maria Fruchterman transferred this past fall to Mason, she already had a close circle of friends. That’s because, while she was taking her lower-division community college classes, she was also playing club field hockey at Mason. It was a perk afforded to her because she was in the ADVANCE program.

    “It’s been really good for my transition,” Fruchterman said. “I just felt at ease and very comfortable.”

    Maria Fruchterman answers questions about the ADVANCE program during a welcome event at George Mason University in Virginia.
    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    The motivation to give Northern Virginia students access to the Mason campus was two-fold, Nelson said. For one, as a community college, Northern Virginia doesn’t offer all the same benefits and resources available at Mason and other four-year institutions, like health insurance and mental health counseling.

    Officials also wanted to eliminate the “transfer shock” that transfer students often deal with upon arriving at the four-year university, Nelson said. “They’re going to a new environment. Everything is different,” she added.

    By giving students access to those resources up front, it allows them to “hit the ground running,” Nelson said.

    That’s what Perez is planning for himself. While visiting Mason’s main Fairfax campus for the welcome event, he felt a different buzz than what he was accustomed to at Northern Virginia’s main campus in nearby Annandale. 

    “I noticed that there’s so many more people around,” he said. “Especially in Annandale, it seems like everyone leaves campus by 3 p.m.”

    As he learned about the different clubs offered at Mason, Perez said he planned to join several: a computer science club, a chess club, maybe even an intramural badminton team. 

    Can California replicate?

    Whether California’s dual admission programs will significantly improve transfer won’t be known for some time. Both programs are in their infancy, just launched last fall.

    Between the two, CSU may have a better chance at success, with a far more robust program than what UC offers. About 2,000 students enrolled in CSU’s first cohort, compared to just 182 for UC. 

    CSU’s program is open to essentially any first-time college freshman entering a California community college. Students can enroll by creating an account on the CSU Transfer Planner portal and selecting from one of the degree programs across CSU’s 23 campuses. Eligible students are guaranteed admission. 

    UC’s program is limited only to students who applied to UC but weren’t eligible because they didn’t complete their A-G course requirements in high school. That was the minimum required by a state law passed in 2021 creating the dual admission programs. 

    The law, designed to give students a second chance at attending UC or CSU, asks UC and requires CSU to offer dual admission to students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.” CSU’s program goes beyond what’s required by law by offering dual admission to just about any student who was rejected or simply chose not to attend CSU.

    UC may be less incentivized to admit students because several campuses have capacity issues and turn away many qualified applicants each year. UC’s program is limited to only six of its nine undergraduate campuses, with its three most exclusive campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego — not included. 

    CSU’s dual admission program is available at every campus, though select programs with capacity issues are excluded, such as some engineering programs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. 

    CSU officials hope the dual admission program will eliminate a problem with the current system: local campuses and their staff aren’t familiar with prospective transfer students until they apply. 

    “We want this to be an opportunity for us to connect with them way earlier in the process and support them,” said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management. 

    Similar to the Virginia program, students on CSU’s dual admission pathway get access to an online transfer planner showing them all the classes they need upfront.

    Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s higher education center, is hopeful it will make a meaningful difference. In an August 2023 PPIC report, Johnson and other researchers identified dual admission as a “promising approach” to help solve California’s transfer dilemma. 

    “A lot of the challenge for community college students when they start is knowing what is required to get into UC and CSU,” he said. “By front loading all of that information, we think students would face fewer obstacles and be more efficient.”

    In addition, CSU’s dual admission program gives community college students access to programs and services available at the campus closest to their residence, like the ADVANCE program does. One CSU campus, Long Beach, for years has already been offering something similar. As part of the “Long Beach Promise 2.0,” launched in 2018, students at nearby Long Beach City College have the option to receive a “future student” ID card for CSU Long Beach and can access the campus library, athletic events, clubs and more.

    “A lot of research in higher education focused on why students complete or why they don’t complete has included this notion of belonging, feeling a part of the campus,” Johnson said. “And I think the more that you can do for community college students can only help that sense of belonging so that when you eventually do transfer, you feel like it’s your school.”

    In Virginia, staff at George Mason and the community college are often asked how other colleges can replicate their success.

    Jennifer Nelson addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University.
    Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource

    Officials at those colleges point out that the two institutions have several factors working in their favor. The partnership is natural given the geographic proximity and historical relationship between the colleges. There are a number of faculty who have taught at both colleges. The colleges’ presidents work closely and actually spend time with each other, like meeting up for an occasional breakfast. 

    “How do you do this work? I can tell you it’s not easy. If it was easy, lots of people would be doing it,” Muir said. “It takes a lot of relationship-building, a lot of connection and recognizing the value of a community college education.”





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  • Colleges and universities must step up to counteract financial aid form delays

    Colleges and universities must step up to counteract financial aid form delays


    California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

    In any given year, planning for higher education and applying for financial aid is a complicated, overwhelming and time-consuming process for families.

    This year, amid an extensive list of changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, application and processing delays, and the growing list of glitches and issues with the application, submitting the FAFSA by the deadline for priority admission to California state universities may seem like an impossible task.

    Parents and families that our organization has worked with and surveyed in this application cycle are frustrated. And, with so much at stake for their students, they want to know: “Given all the delays with the FAFSA, will students have a longer time to decide which school to go to next year?”

    We think they should.

    The experiences of the families we connected with are consistent with what we are seeing nationwide. A National College Attainment Network analysis found that FAFSA submissions for the class of 2024 lag behind last year’s senior class by 42%. Even if families are able to submit an application, institutions won’t be able to create financial aid packages until early April, six weeks later than previously announced, and four months later than is typical.

    These delays are more than an inconvenience.

    Delays and technical issues with the application will have the most significant impact on the students who need financial aid the most. Students of color, students from mixed-status families, first-generation college students, students experiencing homelessness, and students in the foster care system are more likely to experience difficulty accessing financial aid, or completing their applications at all. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced a resolution to a problem that was halting the application process for students with parents without a social security number, giving those students less than three weeks to submit their applications.

    Policymakers and advocates across the country have offered various proposals to ensure that students and families have ample time to make an informed decision about higher education. Over 100 members of Congress urged Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to provide clarity and “minimize the potential impact” of the issues with the FAFSA.

    California state legislators are currently debating a one-month extension for state financial aid. The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association released recommendations for states given the delay in Institutional Student Information Records. The National College Attainment Network and nine other organizations have called for the extension of university commitment and scholarship deadlines.

    The U.S. Department of Education recently announced it would relax requirements for colleges and universities in order to allow more time for getting financial aid packages to families. However, this alone is not enough to ensure that students across the country have access to the money they need to attend college.

    Institutions of higher education must be proactive and support students and families to access the financial aid they deserve. Colleges and universities should delay commitment and scholarship deadlines to June 1 to allow families enough time to compare financial aid packages and decide which university is right for them.

    The FAFSA Simplification Act was designed to make financial aid more accessible to students across the country. Let’s not penalize the students and families who are essentially beta testers this year. We must do all we can to remove as many obstacles as possible for students and keep our promise of simplifying the financial aid process for this class and every class to follow.

    •••

    Darcel Sanders is CEO of GO Public Schools, a nonprofit organization working with families to advocate for the equitable public education of underserved students in California. She previously served as legislative director for state Sen. Carol Liu and earlier worked as a middle school teacher in Oakland.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Bill would expand nursing bachelor’s degrees to California community colleges

    Bill would expand nursing bachelor’s degrees to California community colleges


    Credit: Riverside City College / RCC.edu

    Community college leaders will once again attempt to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing, renewing a fight with the state’s universities over whether expanding to the two-year sector eases California’s nurses shortage or increases competition.

    The bill, authored by state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, would allow 15 yet-to-be-selected community college districts that already provide associate degrees in nursing to offer bachelor’s degrees in the field. 

    While California State University has yet to take a position on Roth’s bill, it’s clear the system has a stake in whether community colleges are allowed to serve students who may otherwise attend CSU or private school programs.

    The majority of bachelor’s and advanced nursing degree programs are taught by independent and private colleges, which hold about 51% of the market. Statewide, there are 48 bachelor’s degree nursing programs.  At least 17 Cal State campuses and six University of California campuses offer a bachelor’s or master’s nursing program within their systems. 

    Enrollment in bachelor’s nursing programs has also increased statewide, with much of the growth in the private sector. In 2021, 9,179 new students entered these programs — nearly 2,500 more than the previous year, according to a 2023 state nursing board report conducted by UC San Francisco. Meanwhile, fewer students are enrolling in associate degree nursing programs, which are mostly at public community colleges. 

    “The workforce need has only grown,” said Kaylie Schmidt, a spokesperson with the Community College League of California, a nonprofit organization advocating in favor of the bill, SB 895. “We have nursing shortages like we’ve never seen before, and many of our districts are in communities that have workforce shortages.” 

    Schmidt said in some areas of the state, nursing students will leave their smaller communities that are in desperate need of health care professionals and migrate to other regions that offer them an opportunity to pursue the bachelor’s nursing degree. 

    Some estimates show that California is facing a shortage of about 36,000 licensed nurses — a need that is expected to grow “substantially by 2030,” said Andra Hoffman, a trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District. “This tremendous gap continues to widen as current nursing baccalaureate degree programs have demand greater than their enrollment capacity,” she said. 

    This isn’t the first time the community colleges have pushed the Legislature to approve offering nursing baccalaureate degrees. Ten years ago, the state’s community colleges began offering bachelor’s degrees in certain programs and at specific colleges to address unmet workforce needs. Back then, community college leaders warned that nursing shortages would continue if California didn’t allow the community colleges to offer nursing degrees. The state approved the pilot community college bachelor’s degree program but excluded nursing because state law bars the colleges from offering programs already offered by the universities.

    SB 895, which would change that law, is expected to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on April 10.

    Rehman Attar, Cal State’s director of health care and workforce development, said CSU has not taken a formal position on the bill but welcomes the Legislature to fix the problems like clinical placements and faculty shortages in nursing education within all three systems. 

    Registered nurses are not legally required to have a bachelor’s degree to practice. But a growing number of employers and health facilities require registered nurses to have, or be in pursuit of, a bachelor’s degree. A 2010 Institute of Medicine report recommended that the proportion of registered nurses with bachelor’s degrees increase to 80% by 2020. Meanwhile, in California, a 2021 Health Impact report found more than 54% of the state’s hospitals preferred hiring nurses with bachelor’s degrees. 

    A common misconception is that increasing the capacity of BSN-trained nurses at CSU would solve the nursing shortage, Attar said. 

    Instead, the problem is much larger than that, he said. Solving it means increasing more capacity for students to get clinical training and hiring more faculty to teach the courses for the community colleges and the universities. 

    “That’s a big limiting factor and a bottleneck for us to increase capacity,” Attar said.

    Both associate degree and bachelor’s degree nursing programs require practical experience, or clinical education, in health care settings. But many health care facilities have a limited number of spots available to offer that experience to students. Creating new nursing programs would only add more students competing for that limited space. Attar said some universities outside of the CSU system also pay or incentivize for clinical placement spots for their students. Getting students into clinical training is an additional challenge all colleges face. Attar said CSU doesn’t pay or incentivize health care facilities for clinical placement spots because the practice isn’t equitable or fair for all students.  

    Schmidt said the bill would use clinical space already offered to these community college districts. Would that mean students within a single community college are facing greater competition against each other for clinicals? Schmidt said it would be on the community college to determine how it wants to use the clinical space it has between students earning an associate degree and a bachelor’s degree.

    A separate bill authored by Roth, SB 1042, plans to address the clinical placement problem by requiring health facilities to work with public and private nursing programs to attempt to make the necessary number of placements available to them to meet the schools’ demand. 

    Statewide, there has been growth in nursing programs offering bachelor’s degrees. According to a 2023 report from the California Board of Registered Nursing, the number of bachelor’s programs in the state increased from 43 in 2020 to 48 in 2021. However, that 20% growth in programs took place in the private sector. 

    Alex Graves, vice president of government relations for the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, said the organization has not taken a formal position on SB 895, but they do have concerns about it exacerbating the challenge of finding faculty for bachelor’s nursing programs. 

    “The reality is if there are additional courses that are going to be required for community colleges to offer BSN programs, it will likely mean there will be additional faculty demands coming for those programs,” he said. “That will just make it all the more difficult for all of us to find those folks to fill those positions in our programs.” 

    Encouraging qualified nurses to teach in both associate and bachelor’s degree programs has been challenging for nearly all programs because colleges and universities can’t compete with the salaries nurses make working in health care settings. 

    Although faculty vacancy rates have fluctuated over the years, in 2022, the state nursing board reported a 12.1% faculty vacancy rate — the highest it had been in 10 years. Many colleges have compensated by hiring more part-time nursing faculty, but that hasn’t diminished their need for more faculty overall. The board found nearly 70% of nursing programs reported faculty working “overloaded” schedules, of which 94% reported paying their faculty extra for the additional work. 

    “We’re fortunate enough that we have doctoral programs that focus on creating nurse educators,” Rehman said, speaking for the CSU system. “But again, that pipeline gets restricted at the associate’s and bachelor’s degree level, so if we’re not able to increase that pipeline of students to become nurses, it restricts us in terms of producing nursing faculty, as well.” 

    Rehman called it a “domino effect.” 

    “When we’re able to address these core fundamental nursing issues of clinical placement — and just starting with that — that’s going to start alleviating some of the pains that we find with faculty,” he said.  

    Addressing the constraints on clinical placements and the shortage of nursing faculty are the best ways to get more nurses into the profession, Graves said.

    Instead, Graves said there are better examples of collaboration between community college and university nursing programs that provide a clear path for students to achieve their bachelor’s without compounding the faculty and clinical placement challenges. Those examples are in concurrent enrollment or associate degree to bachelor’s nursing degree programs.  

    Partnerships

    The number of associate degree programs partnering with bachelor’s degree nursing programs has also increased. Private universities and some Cal State campuses have formal concurrent enrollment nursing programs with community colleges that allow students to earn both degrees simultaneously. The state nursing board reported such partnerships have increased over the last 10 years from 50.8% in 2012 to nearly 60% in 2021.

    CSU has more than 10 such partnerships across its campuses and wants to add more. 

    “These ADN to BSN pathways have been really helpful,” Rehman said. “We’ve been able to streamline our curriculum with the community colleges to really reduce the time to graduation. … We’re also having coordination with our clinical placements.”

    The partnerships could be an alternative to allowing community colleges to offer the bachelor’s degree directly. 

    That collaboration with the community colleges creates better clinical placement schedules to get students in and out of the program more quickly. Traditionally, it can take a nursing student up to six years to complete their bachelor’s degree. However, the associate-to-bachelor’s nursing partnerships reduce that time to three to four years, allowing more students to graduate, Rehman said. 

    “It’s a win-win, and we’re always looking to grow it,” he said. “We’re going to continue to keep on trying to grow it and make it more accessible to all of our community college partners.” 





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