One year ago, we wrote in this space that it was time for an honest conversation about California’s structural budget problems. We noted that despite the record level of education spending the state was planning, the highly volatile nature of state tax revenues could change that good news into bad nearly overnight. Nobody cared.
That our cries about a falling sky were ignored last year wasn’t surprising. We were writing only a few months after Gov. Gavin Newsom had reported a surplus of nearly $100 billion in the May 2022 revision. And, his January 2023 budget still projected a “nothing to see here” vibe, despite shifting into a modest deficit. Things were looking pretty OK twelve months ago. Now they aren’t, and despite the governor’s optimism, the fiscal situation may be bad for some time to come, which is why we are picking up this conversation again. If you care about the future of California’s schools and students as we do, you’ll agree we need to have a serious discussion about supporting our education investments with stable revenue.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office identified a $68 billion “budget problem” in its latest fiscal outlook. The even more dire news, however, came earlier, when its revenue forecasters declared that the state had entered an economic downturn in 2022, resulting in a significant revenue shortfall for budget promises made during 2023-24, and persistent deficits anticipated through 2027-28. On a national level, there is talk of a “soft landing” for the economy. In California, the ride looks to be a bit bumpier.
And predictably, talk of cutting K-12 funding has already started to emerge. We know from the Great Recession that lawmakers quickly cut per-pupil funding, delayed payments to schools, and swapped funding with local governments. We have the Proposition 98 reserve to draw on this time, but the LAO notes that those funds may dry up to get us out of the 2023-24 and 2024-25 budget hole, leaving school districts in a precarious funding situation if the economy worsens.
But, as they say in the infomercials, “Wait, there’s more.” There has been a significant push from state leaders to develop a “continuous improvement” model for California schools. This has meant a significant financial investment — in the realm of billions of dollars — in the recruitment and retention of teachers, new programs that address students’ social and emotional learning needs, and experiments with “whole child” approaches to schooling by funding programs like community schools. The issue is that funding for many of these programs was one-time only. Ignoring the issue of school funding stability means that the state’s strategy to shift learning paradigms is at risk of losing resources in the coming years.
The governor just released his draft budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year with the deficit and education funding featuring prominently. It means that while there will be belt-tightening for schools, much of the gap will be closed by delaying funding to a variety of programs, including preschool, transitional kindergarten and full-day facilities grants, and funding for the UC and CSU systems. The strategy appears to be to fund the status quo this year. Draw upon reserves. Delay some funds here, shift a few billion there. And, generally avoid, where possible, cutting back on special projects funded with one-time funds. Then, hope it doesn’t get any worse.
Notably, the governor’s Department of Finance is projecting a deficit of $38 billion or $30 billion less than the LAO’s figure from five weeks earlier. That isn’t trivial. Part of the explanation is that recent stock market gains contributed to a more positive revenue picture. Major shifts in tax revenue are, as the governor essentially stated, “normal” in California. That is the problem.
Fixing the state’s structural fiscal problems will be difficult, and all pieces need to be part of the discussion. This includes reforming Proposition 13, accounting for long-term liabilities such as pensions, and broadening the sales tax base to include services. The conversation must include incentives for the state and local governments to save. It could include unconventional elements such as a sovereign wealth fund, or unpopular ones such as a broadly based consumption tax or resurrecting the state’s inheritance tax.
Taking a hard look at how the state funds education needs to happen. Uneven funding means that strategic investments like continuous improvement become two steps forward and a step or two back, then repeat. If we are serious about transforming California’s schools and supporting students with adequate and equitable funding, we need to start talking —and acting — to secure stable funding.
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Erin Heys is policy director and senior researcher at the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans, a research center affiliated with the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley.
Patrick Murphy is director of resource equity and public finance at The Opportunity Institute, a national education policy organization that focuses broadly on cradle-to-career education policy, and is a professor at the University of San Francisco.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Jeannette, a student in special education in the Merced County Office of Education’s adult transition program, folds El Capitan Hotel towels as part of a housekeeping training program that teaches work and life skills. For student privacy, the county office did not disclose Jeannette’s last name.
Credit: Courtesy of Merced County Office of Education
As guests check out of El Capitan Hotel in downtown Merced, a group of students wearing Merced County Office of Education (MCOE) shirts or lanyards enter recently vacated rooms to strip the beds, empty the trash bins and vacuum the floors.
For more than a year, students like Alondra Fierros, who always has a smile on her face, have separated and washed the hotel’s dirty linens while Jayden Flores has neatly folded the clean hotel towels into stacks of eight without looking up from the task.
Most of the students, ages 18-22, are diagnosed with varying degrees of autism and/or other disabilities, are in special education in the county office’s adult transition program and learning how to do laundry and clean for the first time.
Despite their limits, the students obtain skills as part of the county office and hotel’s housekeeping program.
“I clean the place, and I take a bunch of dirty bed sheets and towels and put them in the laundry room and wash them,” Flores said about tasks he learned by shadowing and observing housekeepers.
Through hands-on experience at the hotel, students gain skills to work in the housekeeping and hospitality industry — whether at El Capitan or elsewhere — after they graduate. And they develop life skills for adulthood.
Eliazar removes El Capitan Hotel bedding to be washed, one of his duties in a housekeeping training program through the hotel and Merced County Office of Education. Eliazar is a student in special education in the county office’s adult transition program. The county office didn’t disclose his last name for to protect the student’s privacy. Photo courtesy of Merced County Office of Education
“At this age, we’re really trying to (give them) more experience in the community,” said Laura Fong, an assistant superintendent in the Merced County Office of Education.
Vocational training programs have traditionally tailored jobs around special education students’ needs, such as a Fresno restaurant with modified cash registers to accommodate students who can’t read.
This is not the case with Merced County’s program which, instead, integrates students into the housekeeping career, making it one of a few in California and across the nation to do so. The program now serves as a model for other districts aspiring to integrate students with disabilities into careers and society.
From model room to real world experience
The office of education launched the housekeeping training program in October 2022 for its special education students to gain work and life skills in a real world setting, Fong said.
Before the program’s creation, students practiced their skills in an “isolated” mock hotel room, which worked for a while, Fong said.
But it wasn’t enough. The students couldn’t apply what they learned to their life because those skills weren’t being used in a real-world environment. They weren’t observing housekeepers’ work, and therefore couldn’t comprehend the logic behind the tasks they were being instructed to do. They weren’t working alongside employees, so they weren’t learning how to interact with others or the proper ways to behave in a work setting.
The county office sought a collaboration with the hotel, which had built the hotel room replica.
Fong said the yearlong program is critical for the students “to be in the actual field,” get on-the-job training and be able to model employees’ behavior, which in turn provides them with real-world experience while allowing them to interact with others.
How county office’s training programs work
Once Merced County special education students finish their shift at a training site, they return to the classroom or visit another training program for the remainder of the day. In class, one of their tasks is to formulate their resume to include their on-the-job training experience.
Working in the actual hotel “really teaches them responsibility,” said vocational trainer Lorie Gonzales, who accompanies the students to their training programs to supervise and assist them, if needed.
With Gonzales checking their uniforms and attire before a shift, students learn that they must dress appropriately for a job. They learn about the importance of being on time because they’re expected at the hotel for their respective shifts and must clock in once they’re there.
Hotel staff are primarily responsible for training students for the housekeeping tasks, said Robin Donovan, managing director of the hotel.
The students remove dirty sheets and linens, vacuum and straighten rooms, so a housekeeper only has to make the bed and clean the bathroom. Once the housekeeper takes over, students sort, wash and dry the laundry, then vacuum the hallways and stairways and wipe down art and other fixtures mounted on the wall.
The work skills, such as changing sheets and cleaning, become independent living skills that students need in their personal lives, Fong said.
“We want them to be prepared. Not only can they go out and find a job in this industry, doing this work, they can also transfer those skills to living on their own, independently,” she said.
Meg Metz, director of people and culture at El Capitan, said the hotel staff were at first worried about how they’d adapt to working with the students. Now, however, the staff looks forward to working alongside students, Metz and Donovan both said.
Donovan added that hotel staff enjoy their shifts with the students who they say are reliable and hardworking and bring positivity to the workplace.
“They do quality work,” she said, “and with the biggest smiles.”
But the social interactions extend beyond connecting with hotel employees. The partnership with the hotel allows students to engage with hotel guests as well, including those who may still be in their rooms.
“When I come to work here in the hotel, I say, ‘Knock, knock. Housekeeping,’” Flores said as he knocked on a third floor hotel room door.
Gonzales, the vocational trainer, has coached the students on being courteous whenever they run into guests in the hallways and stairways. The students, for instance, tell guests to use the elevator first, Gonzales said.
Expanding opportunities for students with special needs
The housekeeping program isn’t the only vocational training program for individuals with disabilities in Merced County or the surrounding Central Valley communities. Since opening in the 1980s, Wired Café has been a coffee shop where adults with disabilities gain skills that prepare them for the workforce, according to Fong. It is owned and operated by Merced County’s education office as well. Students learn and grow as they take orders and fix and serve smoothies, lattes or sandwiches.
Mimicking Wired Café, the Fresno County education office established Kids Café in 2017 as a work-based learning environment for special education students, county office leaders Christina Borges and Liza Stack said.
Krystal vacuums a hallway at El Capitan Hotel. Krystal is one of about 20 students in special education in the Merced County Office of Education’s adult transition program who is participating in the county office and hotel’s housekeeping training program. For student privacy, the county office did not disclose Krystal’s last name.Photo courtesy of Merced County Office of Education
In their uniforms and aprons, students working at Kids Café complete a variety of tasks, including: preparing and serving food, such as pizza, sandwiches and salads; sweeping or mopping the floors of the restaurant; clearing and wiping the tables after customers leave; stocking inventory; laundering; baking and packaging cookies or scones; weighing and bagging chips; and working the cash register.
The Fresno County office adjusted aspects of the restaurant to accommodate students’ needs and abilities, thereby fostering independence and ensuring student success, Stack said. Restaurant modifications include visual task cards with pictures as well as step-by-step instructions, color-coordinated towels for different cleaning tasks, and a modified register in which 4C means four slices of cheese.
How Kids Café operates
The café provides two-hour shifts for most special education classes during the school year, with longer shifts offered over the summer and winter breaks. Students with special needs living in one of Fresno County’s 30 regional areas for special education services and enrolled in a county-operated program can participate. Participating students may have autism, be deaf or hard of hearing or have emotional disabilities, to name a few. Thirty-three Fresno County special education students, up from 19 last school year, have worked at the restaurant so far this school year.
Starting around July 1, the Fresno County education office will partner with local businesses throughout the county to provide other types of vocational training for students with disabilities and offer employment opportunities in maintenance, facilities and technology at the county office.
“We’re really looking to expand into those areas to give students something more than just restaurant work,” Borges said about integrating students into existing businesses rather than only designing programs for them. “We want to go beyond our students being in one restaurant at one location.”
Much like the Merced County housekeeping training program, Fresno County’s planned expansion would create more vocational training that integrates special education students into careers, rather than tailoring jobs for students — a move that, Borges hopes, will show businesses the value of these students.
Even the California Department of Rehabilitation has worked to close the employment gap for people with disabilities and, in 2022, launched an initiative with the Institute for Workplace Skills & Innovation), a workforce development organization, to employ people with disabilities in allied health care, clerical and manufacturing jobs as part of the Ready, Willing and ABLE program.
In August, the department and organization again partnered to establish Career Launchpad, a vocational skills and career transition program for students with disabilities — an often “overlooked and undervalued” community, a media release at the time said.
Students with disabilities are valuable to the workforce
Overall, vocational training programs such as those in Merced and Fresno exemplify how valuable students with disabilities can be to the workforce, leaders of Merced and Fresno counties said.
“Our students being seen as active, valued members of society is one of the most important things that comes out of this,” Stack said.
Flores, one of the Merced County students, aged out of the housekeeping training program in December when he turned 23. Gonzales, his vocational trainer, said she had hoped his employment with El Capitan Hotel would continue, especially because he could work independently in the training program. The hotel was unable to hire him because they had no open positions. He now participates in the Haven Program, a community-based center serving adults with disabilities.
“I hope in the future, there’s more businesses that will hire them after they graduate,” Gonzales said. “… They’ve proved to us that they are capable.”
As Merced and Fresno counties implement and expand programs throughout their communities, Borges hopes the community’s attitude will change toward students and individuals with disabilities.
“Our students with disabilities,” she said, “have a role in the workforce.”
Mayra Puente speaks at a legislative briefing on Capitol Hill on the TRIO programs in May 2025.
Courtesy: Mayra Puente
President Donald Trump’s “skinny budget” proposal aims to eliminate a group of eight federally funded programs known as TRIO that support higher education access and success for individuals from “disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Eliminating these programs would be a huge mistake.
How was I, a daughter of migrant farmworkers whose parents have limited formal education and live in poverty, able to beat the odds and land a faculty position at a selective university in the U.S.? TRIO.
A recent study investigated whether becoming a professor was driven by socioeconomic status. The researchers surveyed 7,218 tenure-track faculty members at research-intensive institutions in the U.S. across eight academic disciplines between 2017 and 2020. They found that nearly one-quarter of the faculty had a parent with a Ph.D., and over half had a parent with a graduate degree. They also found that white professors were more likely to have a parent with a Ph.D. compared to Black and Latino faculty. Only 1% of Latina women have a Ph.D.
As an undergraduate student at UCLA, I participated in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, one of the federal TRIO programs the Trump administration seeks to cut. Research demonstrates that the McNair Scholars Program is highly effective. Students who participated in the program were 78% more likely to enroll in graduate school than other low-income students.
Could I have applied to graduate school, obtained a Ph.D., and landed a faculty role without the McNair Scholars Program? Maybe. But the reality is that the majority of low-income, first-generation Latino college students like myself are unaware of the hidden curriculum of academia. Many of us are unable to rely on our parents for academic and career guidance, and we often lack access to mentors who can help us navigate the graduate school process.
The McNair Scholars Program introduced me to graduate school and the pursuit of a Ph.D. and a career in educational research as a possibility, and provided mentoring on creating and conducting empirical research studies, research, writing and conference presenting experiences, tutoring for graduate school tests, fee waivers for graduate school applications, feedback on graduate school applications, understanding graduate school and funding offers, a network of professional support at the university and beyond.
Additionally, as a researcher of higher education access and equity for first-generation rural Latino students from migrant farmworkers and low-income backgrounds, I have examined the effectiveness of other TRIO programs, like Upward Bound and Talent Search, in exposing and preparing students for college. In one qualitative research study on California’s Central Coast, a student shared, “Sometimes, I couldn’t imagine being a student from a different tiny, small town where I just didn’t have a college and career center, EAOP (Early Academic Outreach Program), and Upward Bound to help me.”
Other research finds that Upward Bound students are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24 than other groups. The Council for Opportunity in Education also reports high success rates for students participating in other TRIO programs, including Student Support Services, Talent Search, Veterans Upward Bound, Educational Opportunity Centers (EOC), and the McNair Scholars Program.
How can something that is empirically proven to be effective be deemed “wasteful”?
The elimination of TRIO programs threatens knowledge production, innovation, and the education of current and future generations of students, who are becoming increasingly diverse and would greatly benefit from the continued existence of TRIO programs.
TRIO programs also provide services to low-income students, first-generation college students, students with disabilities, and military veterans. Higher education access, made possible through TRIO, is a means of achieving economic and social mobility, which benefits local communities, regions, and the nation as a whole. More importantly, the creation and continued support of TRIO programs is a testament to this country’s commitment to equal educational opportunity and justice for all.
Congress must reject the elimination of TRIO programs if it hopes to see a highly educated and diverse professional workforce in this country. TRIO alumni, estimated to be over 6 million by the Council for Opportunity in Education, should sign the collective TRIO alumni letter and call or write to their respective House of Representatives and Senate offices to urge them to protect and fully fund TRIO programs in the 2026 budget. TRIO alumni and others can share their TRIO success stories on social media using the hashtags #ProtectTRIO and #TRIOWorks.
The narratives and empirical evidence of the effectiveness of TRIO programs are overwhelming. My path to the professoriate is mainly due to federally funded TRIO programs.
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Mayra Puente is a rural Latina, assistant professor of higher education at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Six additional bachelor’s degree programs have been approved across California’s community colleges, the state chancellor’s office for the college system announced.
The latest programs to be approved include respiratory care at Antelope Valley College, paramedicine at College of the Siskiyous, dental hygiene at both Cypress College and Oxnard College, paralegal studies at Santa Ana College and respiratory care therapist at Victor Valley College.
“Through the Baccalaureate Degree Program we are broadening the reach of higher education and skill development to a greater number of students by offering affordable and quality opportunities close to home,” Aisha Lowe, an executive vice chancellor for the college system, said in a statement.
There are now 32 different community colleges across the state with at least one bachelor’s degree program. A few colleges have multiple offerings, including Antelope Valley, Cypress and Santa Ana with their latest approvals.
The number of bachelor’s degrees being offered across the community colleges will likely continue to increase. In January, colleges submitted another 13 program applications that are currently under review.
Under a 2021 state law, the community college system can approve up to 30 bachelor’s degrees annually, across two cycles each year. The degrees are all offered in high-demand career fields such as dental hygiene and automotive education.
By offering those degrees at the community college level, students can earn a bachelor’s degree for a fraction of what it costs to get one at a four-year university. In some cases, the degrees are also more accessible, since there are some community colleges offering them in parts of the state where there isn’t a University of California or California State University campus.
To get approved, the programs must first go through intersegmental review, a process in which the California State University and the University of California systems get to say whether they object to the degrees. Under state law, the programs can’t duplicate programs that are offered at UC or CSU.
That has been a point of contention, particularly with CSU, which has raised duplication concerns about several programs that community colleges have proposed, something that has delayed the approval process. Currently, 11 programs remain under intersegmental review.
Community college officials say they are working with CSU officials to establish a better process for resolving those disputes more quickly in the future.
Because the community colleges can’t create bachelor’s degree programs that are already available at CSU and UC, they have been prevented from offering degrees in some fields with worker shortages, such as nursing. Newly proposed legislation aims to change that: Senate Bill 895 would allow 15 community colleges to begin offering bachelor’s degrees in nursing.
Teacher Marisol Garcia Del Ruiz holds up a book in English and demonstrates the words for emotions in Spanish at a Head Start class in Norwalk in September 2015.
Sarah Tully, EdSource
Enrollment in early childhood development programs can mitigate some of the consequences of homelessness among infants and toddlers, but only 1 out of 9 of these children are enrolled in such programs, according to a recent national report.
In California, 1 out of 6 are enrolled.
An increasing number of families with infants and toddlers are homeless, with many staying in shelters, motels, temporary homes or living unsheltered, according to federal data included in the report from SchoolHouse Connection, a national homeless advocacy organization, and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.
Researchers indicate that there is no single reason for increasing homelessness because each family’s situation differs; however, the rates have been exacerbated by the end of pandemic-era eviction protections. Infants and toddlers are most at risk of evictions, according to a report published in October by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In California during the same program year, there were over 1.6 million infants and, of those, more than 55,000, or 3.27%, experienced homelessness. Less than 10,000 of the homeless infants and toddlers were enrolled in an early childhood program, leaving tens of thousands of children without educational programming and potentially also unconnected to supportive resources to help their families find stable housing.
The report relied on census data to estimate how many children under age 3 were experiencing homelessness across all 50 states.
Homelessness rarely ends in a linear fashion, meaning that the infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness during the 2021-22 program year, whose data was used for the SchoolHouse Connection report, may well be the same young students in unstable housing today. Understanding the data may help shape how schools support students in need, particularly given that homelessness often has long-lasting effects on academic development.
“The younger and longer a child experiences homelessness, the greater the cumulative toll on their health and well-being,” the report authors wrote. “In fact, the impacts of homelessness on young children, including on children’s school readiness, can be long-lasting, even after families are stably housed.”
To estimate the prevalence of homelessness, authors used “the percentage of first graders identified as homeless in each state,” a number they indicate is conservative since advocates have long shared that homeless youth remain undercounted.
The data on Early Head Start came from the Head Start Enterprise System, while local educational agency enrollment information was gathered using Ed Data Express, a site that holds data collected by the U.S. Department of Education.
The report further detailed which type of early childhood program the enrolled children in California were attending.
During the 2021-22 program year, there were 915 infants and toddlers enrolled in a home visiting program, 2,883 enrolled in an early Head Start program, and 5,887 who were being served by a local educational agency.
In California, the low enrollment rates translate to just 1 in 6 infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness being enrolled in a program.
While infants and toddlers may not be enrolled in a local educational agency, such as an elementary school or a county office of education program, some districts have implemented programs that help support the siblings of homeless children who are attending school.
For example, Greenfield Unified School District in Monterey County has used pandemic-era federal funds to offer baby items as donations, so that families in need could be identified and supported even if their infant or toddler was not yet enrolled in a district program.
Those federal funds, however, are set to expire within the next year, leaving school staff unsure of whether they will be able to continue offering those services.
Over the last two decades, Congress has amended certain requirements to access federal early care, education and homelessness programs in order to increase the enrollment of homeless children and families. For example, homeless families have additional time to provide immunization records when enrolling in Head Start programs, which also have the flexibility to reserve slots for homeless families.
Despite these changes, homeless infants and toddlers remain overwhelmingly under-enrolled.
The report offered recommendations on homelessness prevention and eliminating the program enrollment gap, such as improving the quality of data on homeless children who are accessing child care subsidies, and targeting housing vouchers toward families with children and expectant parents who are experiencing homelessness, among other items.
A commencement ceremony at California State University, Fullerton, in 2021.
Credit: Cal State Fullerton/Flickr
New “K-12 Simplified Funding Program” is effectively an elimination, advocates say.
Proposal eviscerates programs for low-income students in both K-12 and higher education.
Funds for disabled students increased, but shift to flat funding is concerning to educators.
The Trump administration is proposing the biggest cuts in a half-century to federal financial aid by reducing Pell Grant award amounts for low-income college students, plus the government’s contribution to the Federal Work-Study program. Fewer students will likely enroll in college and achieve a degree as a result, college officials say.
The cuts are included in a proposed 15% reduction to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, totaling $12 billion in cuts to K-12 and higher education, plus sweeping changes to how remaining funding would be distributed.
The budget is still under review by the Senate, which could change the administration’s proposal in any direction.
Advocates, however, remain pessimistic and warn that this education budget request is only one aspect of the larger budget and policy concerns.
“The biggest thing is what happens in the Senate with budget reconciliation,” said Rob Manwaring, a fiscal and policy analyst at the advocacy organization Children Now.
The proposal eviscerates funding for programs that support students experiencing homelessness, rural students, English learners, and more. However, President Donald Trump would maintain Title I, which provides supplemental funds to schools in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, at the current $18 billion.
K-12 funding
Funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is slightly higher in the budget request, but advocates are concerned that federally mandated costs are rising faster than federal funding.
Manwaring said special education, for instance, is “one of the fastest growing costs for school districts,” due to a rise in students being screened and diagnosed with disabilities, plus costs associated with the resources provided.
The budget request lists funding for special education as an “increased investment,” but a consolidation of various programs supporting students with disabilities ultimately amounts to flat funding.
This type of funding “is further reducing the federal government’s role in supporting special education” because it does not account for variables such as cost-of-living increases, costs of salaries and benefits for educators, a rise in disabled student populations, and other such changes, Manwaring said.
At risk of elimination are hundreds of millions for programs that support the education of migrant students, teacher training, education research and English learners.
The proposal includes pooling together 18 grant programs currently funded at about $6.5 billion into a single $2 billion block grant. It is titled K-12 Simplified Funding Program and the administration argues it will allow states and local education agencies flexibility in how funding is allocated.
Those 18 programs include:
Education for Homeless Children and Youths (EHCY)
Assistance for Arts in Education
Statewide Family Engagement Centers
American Civics and History Education
Comprehensive Literacy State Development
Advocates say the consolidation amounts to elimination.
“It’s just another way of saying ‘we’re eliminating funding,’” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection. “Whether the funding is zeroed out because the line item is zeroed out or whether it’s zeroed out because supposedly it’s put into a new block grant, the program doesn’t exist anymore.”
Part of the problem with the consolidation plan is the removal of targeted funding, she added.
California’s Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, provides an example of how the federal consolidation plan could play out: While schools receive funding for several vulnerable student groups, the stream is not only often limited in how it can be spent, but is also shared among students with widely varying needs. This has historically led to insufficient funding for students who require much greater support, according to the Learning Policy Institute.
Lack of targeted funding for vulnerable student groups, such as students experiencing homelessness, fails to address the specific types of support that students may need in order to keep attending school, Duffield added.
“Who’s doing the outreach and awareness? Who’s going knocking on the doors of motels? Who’s going to shelters?” she asked, listing a multitude of tasks that homeless liaisons, funded in part with federal dollars, take care of.
Students experiencing homelessness are one student group with a specific federal policy outlining supports that schools are required to offer. In their case, it’s the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Advocates are raising questions about whether the proposed funding changes could impact other federal policies.
“Will the requirement go away if the funding goes away? That is where the ambiguity of what the information that’s been shared so far is: Will there be changes in law that accompany changes in budget?” Manwaring said.
How higher education is faring
California college leaders said the proposed changes and cuts to federal financial aid programs, including TRIO programs, the Pell Grant, and federal work-study, would make it more difficult for students to enroll and complete their degrees.
TRIO programs — such as Upward Bound, Veterans Upward Bound, and McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement — aim to help disadvantaged students enroll in and complete college. Its funding, over $1 billion across 10 programs, would be fully eliminated.
In project year 2024-25, TRIO funded almost 450 projects in California, according to an EdSource analysis of grant award data for all eight TRIO program types published by the U.S. Department of Education. Together, projects in California received about $150 million to engage more than 100,000 student participants and train 556 staff members.
The White House proposal would also reduce the maximum Pell Grant by 23% — nearly $1,700 — from $7,395 to $5,710. The administration defends the proposed cut, saying that not reducing the maximum amount “would put the program in an untenable financial position,” and contends that the maximum award will still cover the average full amount of in-state tuition and fees for community college students. The budget summary says that overall funding levels have not kept up with broader eligibility requirements approved by former President Joe Biden.
The proposed cut to the Pell maximum grant is the first in more than 30 years and certainly the largest by far in the more than 50 years of the program’s existence, according to federal records. Very modest reductions to the maximum award were made in 1993 and in the early 1980s.
Additional changes imposed in the House’s reconciliation bill would strip any Pell Grant eligibility from many part-time students and change the number of minimum credits students need to get the maximum award from 12 credits per term to 15.
Such a large reduction in the maximum grant would be “troubling” and, together with the possible eligibility changes, would mostly impact low-income students and shut off more of them to the financial aid they need to attend college, said Allie Bidwell Arcese, senior director of strategic communications and engagement for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
In California, 24% of community college students, 35% of University of California undergraduates and about 42% of California State University students receive a Pell Grant, which is available to low-income students.
The White House proposal would also reduce funding for Federal Work-Study by $980 million and eliminate the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant. Those changes would be less impactful to California students but still significant. To employ students in work-study jobs, colleges would have to put up 75% of their pay; currently, they contribute only 25%. With both the CSU and UC already facing cuts in federal and state funding for next year, it’s unclear whether they could afford such an increase in matching money to sustain work study at current levels.
More than 41,000 students in California participated in the Federal Work-Study program in the 2022-23 award year, according to an EdSource analysis of Federal Student Aid data. Their earnings include almost $95 million in federal compensation.
In addition, more than 252,000 California students received Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. The federal share of those awards was about $131 million.
In the San Diego Community College District, more than 12,000 students receive a Pell Grant. The proposals put forth in the White House’s budget request and the House reconciliation bill would have devastating impacts on the district’s students, said Chancellor Gregory Smith.
Roughly 4,000 students in the district get the maximum award and would lose out on about more than $1,500 annually. An additional 4,500 students take fewer than eight credits and could forgo their Pell Grants entirely under the House’s bill. Smith said he expects many of those students will end up dropping out if the proposed changes are enacted.
“The likelihood of many of them being able to complete college would be very low,” he said. “So many of our students are in difficult financial circumstances. One bad break — car breaks down — or a medical emergency — will likely force them to have to stop their education.”
At CSU, where more than $1 billion in Pell Grants was distributed to more than 200,000 students in 2023-24, officials estimate that 60% of Pell recipients would see their awards reduced or eliminated altogether under the White House proposal.
A number of CSU students also stand to lose out if the cuts to the opportunity grants and work-study are enacted. Almost 40,000 students were awarded the opportunity grants, and 6,300 participated in Federal Work-Study in 2023-24.
At UC, students and officials in recent years have advocated for the maximum Pell Grant to be doubled, arguing that the current ceiling for the award doesn’t meet student needs and forces many to take out loans. UC was thus “deeply concerned” about the White House proposal, said UC spokesperson Omar Rodriguez, particularly as the system also deals with disruptions to federal research funding.
Joanne Scott, left, practices pharmaceutical compounding, part of Mt. San Antonio College’s short-term vocational pharmaceutical technician program.
Michael Burke/EdSource
Top Takeaways
Short-term vocational certificates, especially those in health fields, are growing across community colleges.
At Mt. San Antonio College, 83% of students complete the programs on their first try.
Officials see vocational training as a way to recover enrollments, which dropped sharply during the pandemic.
Joanne Scott had been without full-time work for about two decades and was struggling to reenter the workforce. Then she learned this year about a short-term pharmacy technician program at Mt. San Antonio College in eastern Los Angeles County.
Scott, 45, is a stand-up comedian who performs about twice a week in Los Angeles, usually at The Elysian Theater in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood, but was looking for a more consistent paycheck. She and her husband have twin 11-year-old boys, and Scott wanted to contribute more.
“Obviously, being a performer is not steady,” she said.
Scott thought something in the medical field would be promising because of the high demand in the job market. She landed on the pharmaceutical program in part because it fit her schedule. The noncredit program is just 20 weeks long, and classes are during the day, allowing Scott to still perform comedy in the evenings. Students who get their certificate often enter the workforce right away as a pharmaceutical technician, either at a retail location like Walgreens or within a hospital.
The program is one of 48 short-term vocational programs that Mt. San Antonio has added in the past five years as part of an effort to serve more adults and prepare them for the workforce. Most of the new programs are in health fields, but the college has also added programs in areas such as tax accounting, welding and appliance repair.
It’s reflective of a growing trend across the state’s community colleges to target more programs at adult students who, because they often work or have family to support, have less time for school than traditional-aged students do. College officials say that enrolling those adults is one way to reverse steep pandemic declines across all populations.
Serving large portions of the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire, Mt. San Antonio has prioritized noncredit vocational programs because many adults in the region are interested in upskilling or finding new careers, said Martha Garcia, the college’s president and CEO.
“If we look at trends for our traditional students, 18 to 24, that population is decreasing,” Garcia said. “I’ve analyzed our demographics, and if I want to impact this community at the greatest level that I can, I need to focus on serving adult learners, because that’s where we have the greatest level of need.”
The number of adult learners in the community college system took a massive hit during the pandemic: Head counts for students age 35 and older declined by about 25% between 2019 and 2021, an even higher rate than students in the 18 to 24 age range.
Those enrollments have, however, been steadily recovering in recent years, especially among students aged 35 to 44, who are now enrolled near their pre-pandemic levels.
One of the reasons for that is the expansion of short-term, noncredit vocational programs.
The programs are tuition-free for students, which is common for noncredit programs across the state. That helps the community colleges compete with for-profit colleges and other institutions that offer their own short-term programs, often with much higher tuition rates.
The colleges also benefit because they receive state funding for students enrolled in noncredit programs.
In 2023-24, community college enrollment statewide in noncredit career programs rose to nearly 82,000 full-time equivalent students, up about 37,000 from pandemic lows and also much higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Mt. San Antonio now has 89 noncredit vocational programs, and about 83% of students who enroll complete their chosen program on the first try. That’s much better than the percentage of students who typically finish longer degree programs at California’s community colleges: Fewer than 1 in 10 students complete an associate degree or transfer to a four-year university within two years of enrolling, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Most of the vocational programs at Mt. San Antonio have a limited number of spots and are open to students with a high school diploma or equivalent on a first-come, first-served basis. The college’s licensed vocational nursing program has more stringent admission standards, requiring students to submit high school transcripts, write a personal statement and demonstrate basic skills competency.
On a recent Tuesday morning on the Mt San Antonio campus, Scott and other students in her program were practicing pharmaceutical compounding, a process that involves mixing or altering drug ingredients to create a medication. In a classroom on the other side of the campus, students in the medical assistant program — another noncredit vocational program — were practicing cleaning minor wounds on one another.
Many of the programs also include an externship, essentially an unpaid internship with a local employer in which students shadow employees or get additional hands-on training. Pharmacy technician students complete a 120-hour externship at a retail location or at a nearby hospital such as Casa Colina in Pomona. Students who do well in their externships often get hired right away, said Amy Kamel, the instructor for the pharmaceutical technician program.
Whenever Mt. San Antonio designs a new vocational program, it’s typically based on labor market data and filling a need, said Diana Lupercio, the college’s director of short-term vocational programs.
“One of the main questions that students will ask us is, what can I do with this? They want to make sure it’s going to lead to a job,” Lupercio said.
Other times, students enroll as a first step to a more advanced degree, like going to pharmacy school or a registered nursing program. Registered nursing programs at California’s community colleges are typically competitive, with the number of applications often exceeding the number of available spots.
Sabrina Hernandez, 29, enrolled in the medical assistant program because it seemed like a “good stepping stone” to a career in health care. Hernandez, who is considering becoming a nurse, initially attended Fullerton College after high school and dropped out to work. She recently finished the medical assistant program at Mt. San Antonio and has started applying for jobs, which she’s hopeful will give her a better sense of whether she wants to continue on her current path.
“I thought this was a good way to make sure I actually like being in a hospital,” she said. Hernandez eventually plans to return to college if she can get admitted to a registered nursing program and is hoping her new certification will bolster her application.
Scott, the pharmaceutical tech student, has some interest in pursuing a more advanced degree and going to pharmacy school, but isn’t certain because doing so would lead to a more stressful career.
For now, she is going to class from 8 am to about 1:30 pm each Monday through Thursday and hoping to land a job at a hospital, which she said she would prefer to a retail job because she’d be interacting with doctors and nurses rather than directly with patients.
“I’m just looking forward to a reliable paycheck,” she said. “All my friends are performers who are poor, and I’ve been texting them saying, ‘You gotta go back to college.’”
A group of education leaders and experts representing both community colleges and four-year universities agreed during EdSource’s Wednesday roundtable discussion that dual admission might be one of the most promising solutions to California’s broken transfer systems.
“At the end of the day, it’s really important for us to ensure that transfer is as seamless as possible, that students have the information they need upfront, that it’s actionable, that they’re able to take the courses they need and get through to transfer,” said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center.
Panelists at the roundtable — “Is dual admission a solution to California’s broken transfer system?” — agreed that dual admission should be available statewide for all interested students in order to ensure more seamless transfers.
The roundtable included discussion of a state law passed in 2021 that sought to improve transfer rates in California. The postsecondary education trailer bill, or Assembly Bill 132, asked the University of California and required the California State University systems to create such programs for students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.”
going deeper
Visit the virtual event page for EdSource’s dual admission roundtable for more information about the speakers and a list of resources.
Dual admission programs offer students guaranteed admission into certain four-year universities after completing a specific list of lower division courses at a community college. This is different from dual enrollment, a process in which students earn college credit while in high school.
This law could potentially transform the state’s higher education pathways, given that California ranks 41st when it comes to high school graduates who enroll in a four-year university but third in its share who enroll in community college, according to Johnson.
“What that means is that transfer students are critical to ensuring that California really provides a meaningful ladder of educational and economic mobility for our population,” Johnson said.
While the state law calls for a pilot program, CSU’s dual admission program is permanent. It’s called the Transfer Success Pathway Program and launched in fall 2023 with an initial cohort of 2,000 students, said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management.
“We purposely are creating a statewide system,” Grommo said. “We also know that students transfer or take courses at multiple community colleges, and we wanted all of that credit to be reflected in the system and for students to be able to accurately track how many units they’ve completed, what their transferable GPA is, and how they fulfill general education and major prerequisites so that they truly understand the courses that they need to transfer.”
CSU’s program includes all campuses, though some of the most impacted majors are excluded, while UC’s program is limited to six of the nine campuses. CSU also 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.
“Just for scale, there’s 162 community college students in the dual admission program for UC, and there’s 2,008 students in the dual admission program for CSU currently in the community colleges,” said panelist John Stanskas, vice chancellor for educational services and support at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
Roundtable panelists also discussed existing programs that could be used as a model for more statewide access to dual admission.
A significant benefit of his dual admission program, called ADVANCE, has been the clarity of knowing exactly which classes he’d need to take at his current campus and at George Mason University after transferring. A clear understanding of the courses he’d be required to take was important, he said, as he decided whether to pursue computer science versus computer engineering.
“The fact that I’m able to see not only what classes I need to take here at NOVA (Northern Virginia Community College) but also what it transfers to and what it transfers as, I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of the program,” said Todd, who is on track to transfer to George Mason University in one year.
“I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my money, I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my time. … I don’t have to be a junior taking freshman classes because I didn’t know that this history class was a prereq for this other class.”
Todd said he’s also benefited from having access to a second campus.
“That’s something that I wouldn’t have if this ADVANCE program doesn’t exist because I have access to everything a GMU student has access to because I’m considered a GMU student, even though I’m at NOVA,” Todd said, referring to George Mason University.
Some GMU resources available to Todd are their libraries, a lab with 3D printers, and access to their student clubs.
One of the longstanding challenges that California community college students face when transferring to a CSU or UC is the need to align the courses on their transcripts with the courses they must take after transferring. It’s a challenge that NOVA and GMU avoided by clearly outlining required courses for students enrolled in ADVANCE, but one that students in Long Beach City College’s initial dual admission program often came up against.
In its initial iteration of the program in 2008, Long Beach City College partnered with Long Beach Unified and CSU Long Beach to create the Long Beach College Promise. Understanding which courses students were required to take at each level of their higher education journey, however, “was almost like a maze that they were trying to demystify,” said panelist Nohel C. Corral, executive vice president of student services at Long Beach City College.
In 2019, the college relaunched a revised version called Long Beach College Promise 2.0, Corral said.
“We mapped the courses students would need to take in their first two years here at Long Beach City College and what it would look like in their last two years at California State University Long Beach,” Corral said. “And that required a lot of coordination between the instructional faculty at both Long Beach City College and at Long Beach State, in addition to counselors and advisers in both institutions.”
The relaunched program included 38 students enrolled at Long Beach City College who were also given CSU Long Beach student identification cards with access to the CSU library, sporting events and career services, among other resources. The following year, the cohort included 162 students, which grew to 774 by the fall of 2021.
“We’re still tracking them and collecting data to assess the transfer rates for those cohorts, but for that fall 2019 cohort, we saw significant transfer rates compared to other populations,” he said.
The panelists agreed that geography may become a potential challenge in the development of dual admission programs statewide, given California’s size. They also agreed, however, that regional partnerships become crucial in those areas.
Just last week, for example, Chico State announced a dual admission partnership with seven community colleges. Fresno State and Fresno City College also have a partnership; likewise, CSU Bakersfield has one with Bakersfield College.
Corral suggested “starting off with the data and seeing where the students are transferring to, if you don’t have a local CSU in your direct vicinity, so that you can start those dialogues and start those engagements with those CSUs that your students are going to.”
Stanskas, of the community colleges’ chancellor’s office, said that dual admission can be “especially important for our place-bound students who can’t go a hundred miles or 500 miles to a program. They have family; they have commitments; they have lives that they are unable to move that way.”
Grommo said, “We would love to see every student that’s transitioning from high school and decides that the community college pathway is their pathway that they need to take, really enroll in the Transfer Success Pathway program so we can support them early in their process and help them through this transfer journey.”
This story was updated to accurately reflect Jaden Todd’s name.
Plenty of conversations in California have focused on recruiting teachers into the profession as a way to grapple with the state’s teacher shortage. This is important, and as a transitional kindergarten teacher, I am acutely aware of how quality teachers can impact our students and communities.
I pursued teaching largely because I want to be the representation I didn’t see growing up. I participated in a teacher residency program that built my confidence in the classroom and taught me to connect with my students by highlighting my own identity. It’s not only the way I was recruited to the profession, it’s also played a role in my retention.
To continue to tackle the teacher shortage, I believe California needs more strong teacher residency programs. Nearly 37% of U.S. public schools experienced at least one teacher vacancy, contributing to nearly half of public school students entering the 2023-24 school year behind grade level in at least one subject. Amid these shortages, California is still reeling from the repercussions of surpassing 10,000 vacancies during the 2021-22 school year. The effects are felt even more so in under-resourced, Latino or Black communities.
At Aspire Richmond Technology Academy, where I teach, I can see how we must prepare educators and then provide the tools for teachers to sustain themselves. It’s how we can prevent shortages and retain teachers down the road.
It was a winding road for me to realize that teaching was my calling. I never envisioned myself becoming an educator, largely because I rarely saw teachers who looked like me or who connected with me on a cultural level. While studies point to the importance of a demographic match between teachers and students, I experienced a real lack of Asian representation in education.
This changed when I went to college. With more exposure to Asian professors, I finally felt seen and represented. I felt empowered that education was a field I could pursue. And I put the puzzle pieces together — that all of my volunteer work and extracurricular activities centered around helping students. By the time I switched majors, I had some catching up to do.
When I learned about teacher residency programs in California, I jumped at the opportunity. I received a master’s degree and a California teaching credential in a single year. Even in my first year of teaching, I felt more prepared than other teacher friends.
While we can’t solve the teacher shortage overnight, here’s how we can ensure we’re training more young people to become highly effective educators and stay in the profession.
First, we need an intensive teacher residency program that builds confidence. ThroughAspire’s teacher residency program at Alder Graduate School of Education, I apprenticed four days a week and had a personal mentor in the classroom with me who provided me with critical one-on-one support. Toward the end of my time as an apprentice, one of the students in our classroom asked my mentor, “So, what’s your job?” This gave me the confidence to teach the following year on my own. I learn best through a hands-on approach, so four days a week in the classroom with one day for intensive seminars and subject-matter courses helped me gain more real life experience.
Second, this wouldn’t be possible without strategic financial supports. We know that systemic inequities, including the high cost of college, hold too many back from pursuing a career in education. Ensuring teacher residents receive a stipend while earning their degree and credential(s) can help. Through a partnership, the program I participated in is helping to support staff members in earning and paying for an undergraduate degree with teaching credentials. Given the importance of representation in the classroom, the partnership prioritizes aspiring teachers of color and those from the local communities.
Finally, we should expand teacher residency programs that are accessible for individuals of all backgrounds. While California has made big investments in teacher residency programs, we also need to focus on effective teacher training initiatives that reflect our school’s communities. When I participated, my teacher residency program focused on “head, heart and hands.” This meant that we integrated theory and research (head), with a culturally responsive equity lens (heart), and our coursework mirrored our field work (hands). Highlighting representation, multiculturalism and identity continues to be stressed throughout the program — and it’s something I hold dear to my heart.
Last week, I proudly watched a kindergarten promotion, which included many of my previous TK students from my student teaching year. Seeing their growth academically, and how much confidence they have gained in themselves and their identities, is another reason why I continue to pursue education. In many ways, their growth reflects my own. And knowing that I contributed a small part to my former and current scholars’ successes, as they flourish in their own ways, brings me a surge of pride.
The programs at Aspire are happening at scale, with more than 36 schools serving more than 15,400 students across California. Not only did my residency program get me into the classroom, it’s played a role in keeping me there. We need more effective residency programs, and this can serve as a model for retaining teachers in California.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
UC Berkeley students on campus on Sather road in Berkeley.
Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource
Patrick Acuña entered the University of California, Irvine as an undergraduate. In recovery from methamphetamine and heroin usage, he entered the UC system with the hope of being supported while he was starting a new academic and social journey. Acuña said maintaining his recovery is vital to him because he knows for sure he “doesn’t want to go back to what once was” — staying up for days on end when he was in active addiction.
The normalization of drinking, substance use and other potentially harmful behaviors campuses is a scary reality for folks in recovery. This disconnect from healthier peers can be isolating and damaging, especially because community can serve as an essential support system. For students entering college, this, in addition to academic stress, new financial responsibilities and more, can increase the risk of relapse.
But on-campus collegiate recovery programs can help students navigate these pressures as part of the continuum of care that is essential to maintaining and solidifying recovery.
Unfortunately, UC Irvine lacked a collegiate recovery program that could have supported Acuña in these challenges. Currently, only six out of the 10 UC campuses have a developing or established collegiate recovery program. The programs that do exist vary widely in their staffing capacity and the range of services they provide.
This discrepancy must be addressed; collegiate recovery programs systemwide should be staffed with at least one full-time staff member, a dedicated and safe physical space and institutional funding.
Trey Murray, an undergraduate student at UC Santa Barbara, said, “I remember coming to UCSB, a quarter behind all the other freshmen because I spent the summer in a treatment center. I was terrified of college as a whole and especially scared of navigating school while staying sober. (The collegiate recovery program) provided me with a safe and recovery-supportive environment that was crucial to my success in school and sobriety. (It) gave me a place to fit in on campus and sparked joy and passion in my student life.”
Collegiate recovery programs provide resources such as substance-free social events, harm reduction supplies such as fentanyl test strips and the overdose medication naloxone, campuswide educational programming, recovery housing, referrals to higher levels of care, and support groups led by peers who are familiar with the social isolation and distinct difficulties of maintaining sobriety or reducing their usage in collegiate settings where substance use is a standard part of social experiences.
These programs are a vital support for students in recovery from substance abuse, other behavioral addictions, eating disorders and similar conditions. According to a report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1 in 7 people aged 18 to 25 meets the diagnostic criteria for a substance-use disorder. Among college students specifically, that number is closer to 1 in 4. Furthermore, data from the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment shows that students at every UC campus are using substances and seeking recovery-supportive communities.
For Acuña, integration of recovery into his everyday life was a much bigger challenge due to the lack of a collegiate recovery program on his campus. “I always have to be vigilant with my recovery; I wouldn’t ever say I have arrived at recovery,” he notes. He didn’t get the needed assistance a collegiate recovery program would have provided regarding hosting on-campus support groups, connecting him to clinicians, allowing him to find a supportive community of peers on campus, and providing an accessible, safe place to go when faced with stressors, activators or urges. Instead, he had to find ways to travel off campus and relied largely on other forms of peer support through student organizations and identity-based clubs such as Underground Scholars to have community and connection with his peers. These organizations, however, are not specifically geared for recovery.
An undergraduate student shared why they had chosen to attend UC Santa Cruz, which has a staffed and funded collegiate recovery program: “My biggest fear in coming to college was relapsing. Having (a collegiate recovery program) during my college experience with its substance-free events and programming, as well as support groups to meet people with shared experiences, has been tremendously helpful in my recovery.”
Recovery as a process is more taxing than a full-time job, as it requires constantly challenging the unhelpful coping mechanisms one has been using for so long, and collegiate recovery programs can support students especially well through their on-campus presence and support.
Preliminary research shows that collegiate recovery programs contribute to better academic outcomes. Data from Texas Tech University, which is home to one of the country’s oldest collegiate recovery programs, suggests that its members have higher graduation rates and higher GPAs than the general student body. Data collected from such programs nationwide show that participating students have almost a 90% graduation rate compared with a 61% institutionwide graduation rate.
As Esse Pink, a master’s student at UCLA, said, “Without the UCLA collegiate recovery program, my life trajectory would be far worse. I would not have stayed sober, I would not have graduated with my bachelor’s, I may not even be alive.”
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Aditi Hariharan is a third year student at UC Davis, majoring in both political science and nutrition science (public health emphasis). She served as the ACQUIRE vice chair on behalf of the UC Student Association in 2023-24.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
