Jill Underly was recently te-elected as State Superintendent of Schools in Wisconsin. She is an active member of the Netwotk for Public Education and attended its last two meetings. She released the following statement after two courts hacked away at Trump’s threat to withhold funds from schools that taught diversity, equity, and inclusion
MADISON, Wis. (WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION PRESS RELEASE) – State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly today issued a statement following two federal court rulings that limit the Trump administration’s ability to withhold critical school funding over an unclear certification form and process.
“Our top priority in Wisconsin is our kids and making sure every student has the support they need to succeed. The past few weeks, school leaders have been scrambling to understand what the impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s order could be for their federal funds, forcing them to take their eye off what matters most.
“Today, two separate courts reached a similar conclusion: the USDE’s new certification process is likely unlawful and unconstitutionally vague. That is a welcome development for our schools and communities who, working in partnership with parents and families, are best positioned to make decisions for their communities – not Washington, D.C.
“We are closely reviewing today’s rulings and will continue to stand up for Wisconsin schools, and most importantly, our kids.”
Santiago Canyon College is one of seven community colleges in the state that have yet to get final approval for bachelor’s degrees they proposed in 2023.
Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College
Rudy Garcia was excited when he learned that his local community college, Moorpark in Ventura County, planned to offer a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and network operations.
A father of four and the only source of income for his family, Garcia believed getting the degree would help him advance in his career in IT support. He had come to realize that more senior jobs typically required a bachelor’s degree.
Getting that degree at nearby Moorpark was appealing, especially because he had already finished an associate degree in cybersecurity at the college.
Rudy Garcia has two associate degrees from Moorpark College and hopes to enroll in a proposed bachelor’s degree program in cybersecurity.Rudy Garcia
“Being able to add that to my resume, it would help me get a better job, better benefits and everything,” he said.
But in the two years since Moorpark first proposed the degree, the college has still not received final approval. It’s one of seven degrees across California that received provisional approval from the state community college chancellor’s office in 2023 but remain in limbo because California State University has flagged them as duplicative of its own programs. The two sides have yet to come to a compromise.
Since the passage of that law, many community colleges have successfully launched new degrees: Thirty-two new degrees are now fully approved across the state, joining 15 that already existed as part of a pilot. Some of the most recently-approved degrees include drone and autonomous systems at Fullerton College, emergency services administration at Mission College in Santa Clara and water resource management at San Bernardino Community College.
But due to disagreements over what constitutes duplication, some degree proposals have stalled.
Resolution, however, could be coming soon. The seven degrees delayed since 2023 are currently being reviewed by WestEd, a nonprofit research organization that was selected to serve as a neutral, third-party evaluator.
Some local community colleges have been under the impression that WestEd would render final decisions on the programs, but that is not the case, a spokesperson clarified. Instead, WestEd will evaluate the programs and share an analysis with the community college system’s board of governors that will “help inform the review process,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson shared the additional details about WestEd’s role on Tuesday morning. WestEd had previously declined an interview request prior to publication of this story.
Colleges have been told to expect the reviews from WestEd as early as this month, though it could take longer.
Officials with the systemwide chancellor’s offices for both the community colleges and CSU also declined interview requests.
For the community colleges, getting a verdict will be welcomed as they have grown increasingly annoyed that their degrees are being delayed.
“My frustration is on behalf of the students that are missing out on this opportunity,” said Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, which got preliminary approval for a degree in digital infrastructure and location services. “We talk a really loud game about student success and being student centered. But right now, preventing these kinds of degrees from going forward is not student centered.”
Although officials from CSU campuses declined to be interviewed, memos obtained by EdSource through a Public Records Act request show that those campuses cited a number of reasons for objecting to proposed degrees.
In some cases, CSU campuses objected only to a few courses where they believed there was overlap. For example, CSU San Bernardino’s objection to San Diego Mesa’s proposed physical therapy assistant degree came down to three upper-division courses focused on biomechanics, nutrition and exercise physiology that would be part of the Mesa program. San Bernardino staff argued those courses duplicate classes that they offer as part of a bachelor’s degree program in kinesiology.
San Diego Mesa officials believe they may have been able to find common ground if they had more time to negotiate. Their only live interaction with San Bernardino staff was a 30-minute Zoom meeting last year, according to Cassandra Storey, dean for health sciences at Mesa. “We never really had the discussion on those three courses,” Storey said. “I would like to think that we could have a conversation and negotiate this.”
Other proposals faced stronger objections. Moorpark faces duplication claims from seven CSU campuses over its proposed cybersecurity program. One campus, CSU San Marcos in San Diego County, wrote in a memo that the proposal “substantially overlaps” with its own cybersecurity degree. “Almost all cybersecurity issues are directly or indirectly related to network operation. The proposed program description is a typical cybersecurity degree,” San Marcos staff wrote.
In the view of Moorpark officials, however, there are fundamental differences between its degree and what San Marcos offers. Whereas degrees like the one offered at San Marcos prepare students for engineering and computer science careers, Moorpark would train students to be technicians and work in cybersecurity support, said John Forbes, the college’s vice president of academic affairs.
“We understand we need more engineers in this world across every type of engineering, and we need good computer scientists that understand coding,” Forbes said. “But our labor force also needs the people that aren’t authoring and designing and engineering. They need the technicians that are using this stuff.”
Moorpark’s program would not be a calculus-based STEM degree, he added. The San Marcos degree does require a calculus course and other math classes as prerequisites.
That itself is a positive for students like Garcia. If he were to attempt a CSU bachelor’s degree,he would essentially have to start over and take several lower-division courses to be eligible to transfer to a CSU campus and potentially pay more in tuition. At Moorpark, he would need only upper-division credits to get his bachelor’s degree and have to pay $130 per credit. On average, community college bachelor’s degrees in California cost $10,560 in tuition and fees over all four years, much less than attending a CSU or UC campus. Much of Garcia’s tuition would also get covered by financial aid, he said.
“So that’s a big plus for me,” he said.
The other major selling point for Garcia is that the Moorpark campus is just a short drive from his house. He’s hoping it will get approved soon and he can start taking classes in the fall.
“The college is like four exits from my house,” he said. “I would totally jump on that.”
Some students are place bound and can’t attend colleges outside their hometown, the community colleges emphasize. But the law does not mention location, allowing CSU campuses to bring objections even if they aren’t located in the same region as the college proposing the degree.
Moorpark, for example, has faced objections from CSU campuses other than San Marcos, including Sacramento State and three San Francisco Bay Area campuses: Cal State East Bay, Sonoma State and San Jose State.
Those campuses may be worried about losing potential students to community colleges. Sonoma State in particular has seen its enrollment plummet in recent years. Staff at San Jose State, where enrollment has flattened, wrote in a memo that they are concerned the Moorpark program would “draw from the same pool of students” as their bachelor’s degree in engineering technology.
Forbes said he understands those worries but believes they may be misguided. “We are big fans of the CSU system, and we want our students to be successful there, and we’re doing everything we can to help them on the transfer end. But for this program, these are not students who would be going to CSU,” he said.
Forbes and other community college officials around the state are eager for resolution. “We’re hopeful, with the smart people we have in California, that rational minds can come to the table and figure out a better path forward,” Forbes said.
This article was corrected on Jan. 21 to include further detail and clarification about WestEd’s role in the review process.
At Sonoma State University, lower enrollment is worsening financial cutbacks.
Credit: Ally Valiente / EdSource
When Kaitlin Anderson committed to play golf for Sonoma State University, she posed proudly in a Seawolves sweatshirt.But last week, school officials announced that they plan to end all NCAA sports next year, part of a bid to balance the school’s budget amid sliding enrollment and anticipated cuts to state funding. Anderson, a business marketing major from Peoria, Arizona, now is thinking that she might leave the campus.
“I will not be coming back here” if the golf program is eliminated, said Anderson, a first-year student. “I think this school will not do well after doing all this because half the reason we have so many people is because of athletics.”
Sonoma State, one of the 23 campuses in the California State University (CSU) system, is perhaps the most extreme example of how public universities in the state are tightening their belts in the wake of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal and troubling enrollment drops at some campuses. The governor’s plan calls for a nearly 8% reduction in state funding in 2025-26 for both CSU and the University of California (UC), while also deferring previously promised budget increases of 5% until 2027-28.
The governor’s proposal is not final, and later revisions could paint a rosier financial picture for higher education. But CSU leaders have warned that the plan, if implemented, couldresult in fewer course sections and larger class sizes, along with some cuts in student services.
Sonoma State has been taking in less money from tuition and fees as its student body has shrunk 39% over the past decade due to changes in local demographics and some continuing fallout from wildfires in the region. In addition to the sports closures, it is also planning to close six academic departments and eliminate two dozen majors in an effort to plug a nearly $24 million budget deficit.
Several other CSU campuses are warning about possible impacts of the governor’s proposal.Stanislaus State, which serves more than 9,000 students in the San Joaquin Valley, could face a $20 million deficit after accounting for the January budget proposal, a Jan. 22 email from the president’s office said. Sacramento State, with a student body of more than 30,000, anticipates making a $45 million one-time cut. CSU Channel Islands officials have outlined plans to permanently reduce the Ventura County campus’s budget by $17 million in recurring expenses in 2025-26, saying that expenses per-student exceed the state average by thousands of dollars.
Reduced state support could be missed most at schools like Sonoma State, one of 11 CSU campuses where enrollment has dropped over the last decade, reducing revenue from tuition and fees. Enrollment this fall was also a mixed bag, rising year-over-year at 15 CSU campuses and falling at eight.
At the Sonoma State campus in Rohnert Park, students responded to the news about the end to NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports and academic cuts with a mixture of anger and disbelief. A video published by the Press Democrat newspaper in nearby Santa Rosa shows an emotionally charged town hall meeting among student-athletes, coaches and university leaders. “So you think that we’re easily replaceable?” one attendee asked interim President Emily Cutrer. (“No, that’s not what I was saying,” she replied.) As tensions escalated, students erupted into bitter laughter and shouted interjections. “Do we get our money back for the semester?” one student asked, prompting applause.
A group called Save Seawolves Athletics has filed a federal civil rights complaint arguing that Sonoma State’s plan to end the school’s NCAA Division II athletics program will impact minority students disproportionately, spokesperson and assistant men’s soccer coach Benjamin Ziemer said. The group is also considering filing a lawsuit.
Signs of belt-tightening were also common this fall at San Francisco State, where enrollment is down 26% over the decade. Students and faculty members in December protested academic job cuts by staging a mock funeral march. Earlier in the fall, the university’s J. Paul Leonard Library announced that it expects to trim its budget 30% over the next two years, reducing its spending on resources like books and journals. The university offered 443 fewer course sections in fall 2024 than in fall 2023, a decline of nearly 11%, according to university data. President Lynn Mahoney said in a December message to the campus that the school is planning for “significant reductions in the 2025-26 budget” totaling about $25 million.
Leaders at California State University, Dominguez Hills — where enrollment has fallen a slighter 3% since 2015, but 20% from its peak in fall 2020 — have already whittled $19 million from the school’s base budget since the 2023-24 school year. If state funding is slashed in 2025-26, campus officials have outlined plans to shave another $12 million, and have contemplated reducing the number of course sections, among other things.
“I don’t want to cut out Psych 101, but if we have a thousand less students here, then maybe I don’t need 20 sections of Psych 101; maybe I only need 12,” President Thomas A. Parham said at a Nov. 7 budget town hall. “What we are trying to do is reduce the number of sections and, in some cases, fill those higher, so that instead of 15 students there might be 25 in them. But we are still trying to keep the academic integrity intact, even as we work smarter around the limited resources we have.”
Some faculty and students at Dominguez Hills are worried. Elenna Hernandez, a double major in sociology and Chicano studies entering the last semester of her senior year, said the tighter finances have been evident at La Casita, a Latino cultural center where she works on campus. She said La Casita, which receives campus funding, isn’t staying open as late as it has in the past and received less funding for its Day of the Dead celebration. The center is important to her because it runs workshops where students can learn about Latino history and culture.
“A lot of students don’t have access to this education,” she said, noting that more than 60% of the student body is Latino. “The classroom doesn’t teach it, necessarily, unless you’re in an ethnic studies class.”
Stanislaus State University President Britt Rios-Ellis said last week in an email to the campus that the university is considering several ways to balance its budget, including reducing the number of courses and looking to save money on utility costs.
Miranda Gonzalez, a fourth-year business administration major at Stanislaus State and president of the school’s Associated Students student government organization, said she initially was surprised that CSU would need to trim its budget at all in light of a decision to increase tuition 6% each year starting this past fall and ending in the 2028-29 school year. Full-time undergraduate students currently pay $6,084 for the academic year, plus an additional $420 per semester if they are from out of state.
“It was kind of a shock that the CSU was going to be cutting their budget when they just raised tuition as well,” she said, adding that lawmakers and campus leaders should remember that any reduction “ultimately impacts the lives of our students, faculty and staff.”
State funding is not the only source of revenue for the CSU and UC systems, which also get money from student tuition and fees, the federal government and other sources like housing, parking and philanthropies.
The revenue picture is not gloomy at every Cal State campus.
Cal State Fullerton, which has the largest student body in the system, saw enrollment grow 4% to roughly 43,000 students between 2023 and 2024. The steady growth provides the campus with a revenue cushionthat has potentially saved jobs, campus President Ronald S. Rochon said.
“We are at a record enrollment, and because of the enrollment, we continue to have the kind of revenue to keep our lights on, people employed and our campus moving forward,” Rochon said in a Nov. 7 presentation to the university’s Academic Senate. “This is something that we all should be taking very, very seriously. We should not rest on our laurels with regard to where we are with enrollment.”
The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU employees including tenure-track faculty, lecturers and librarians, argued last spring that the university system should tap its financial reserves to balance shortfalls. CSU officials, however, say that reserves leave them only enough money to cover 34 days of operations systemwide.
UC’s fiscal outlook is less dire. Enrollment is stable across its 10 campuses and is even increasing at several. Some campuses, like UC Berkeley, may not have to make cuts at all to department budgets. A Berkeley spokesperson cited increased revenues from investments and noted that Berkeley will benefit from a systemwide 10% tuition hike for out-of-state students that kicks in this year. Berkeley enrolls about 3,300 undergraduates from other states and another 3,200 international students.
Other campuses, however, likely would have to make cuts under Newsom’s proposed budget, including to core academic services. The system as a whole faces a potential $504 million budget hole,due to the possible drop in state funding paired with rising costs. “I think this budget challenge does require us to focus more on some campus budgets than we have perhaps traditionally,” Michael Cohen, who chairs the finance committee of UC’s board of regents, said at a meeting last week.
UC Riverside has already saved some money on salariesbecause of retirements and other employee turnover, said Gerry Bomotti, vice chancellor for budget and planning at the campus. Still, the campus could face a deficit next year because ofincreasing compensation costs on top of possible cuts in state funding. Bomotti said the campus will try to minimize anyharm to academic units if reductions are needed.
“Our priority obviously is serving students and supporting our faculty and our enrollment. We tend to always give that priority,” he said.
California’s 116 community colleges, which enrolled more than 1.4 million students as of fall 2023, could face a more favorable 2025-26 budget year than the state’s two university systems. The colleges would get about $230 million in new general funding through Proposition 98, the formula used to allocate money from California’s general fund to K-12 schools and community colleges.
By some measures, the past decade has seen more state and local dollars flowing into California’s public colleges and universities. State and local spending on higher education in California has been at a historic high in recent years on a per-student basis, hitting $14,622 per full-time equivalent student in 2023, up from $10,026 in 2014, according to an analysis by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, which takes into account funding for both two-year and four-year institutions. Looking at four-year schools alone, the association calculated that California spent $3,500 more per student than the U.S. average in 2023. Living costs and salaries, however, are often higher in California than in many other states.
Marc Duran, a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps, contributed to this story.
This article has been updated with the correct spelling of Kaitlin Anderson’s last name and to clarify her plans if the golf program is eliminated.
Louise Simpson, superintendent of Mark Twain Union Elementary School District in Angles Camp, near Yosemite, is frustrated by state rules restricting how small rural districts like hers can spend expanded learning funding.
That was such a well-intentioned and important program for so many districts. It’s known by the acronym ELOP, and it was designed to make additional learning and enrichment opportunities in the school day. But it brought some really burdensome requirements with it, including a 9-hour day and 30 extra days of school.
And while that sounds really great, what’s happened for our small rural districts, is the reality of creating a program just isn’t feasible. And I’ll tell you why:
First, my kids are on the bus for more than an hour each way. They already have a big long day, and adding academics after school for enrichment is not super feasible for two reasons: One is we have a very difficult time finding qualified staff to run it. And the second one is, with the bus-driver shortage, we just don’t have the transportation.
So, many kids that would benefit from this program really don’t have the opportunity, and they are being left behind.
Our budget situation is so, so dire with steep declining enrollment, and we need to use the money that we’re already allocated for super-effective programs.
I came out of retirement this year because this little system was struggling, and only one in 10 kids are proficient in math and only one in four can read — and that’s unconscionable.
And I can fix it, but I need some help using the money that’s already been given to me to use during the day. We have a really cool program that we built with the Sierra K-16 Collaborative Partnership involving peer tutors. It allowed me to get $320,000 to fund an intervention teacher and pay 20 high school kids to come in and tutor my kids. And it’s working, but those funds expire in a year.
I need that ELOP money to be made flexible so that I can teach our kids the core foundational skills they need to be successful. That includes being able to use it during the school day. So many folks can’t find a way to make this funding effective that they’re actually giving it back, and that’s not okay.
We need to come to some agreements where it can be working for everyone. Let me take and share with you what unrestricting these funds could really do for kids.
This is our peer tutoring program. It’s funded in conjunction with Sierra K16.
(short video of tutors working with students)
I hope you’ll join me in reaching out to all of our legislators and asking them to provide small rural districts flexibility in how we use those funds.
The New York Times published a leaked plan to reorganize the Trump State Department; Rubio disowned it. Its goal is to align the State Department and foreign policy with Trump’s “America First” agenda. It’s a very scary vision of Fortress America, cut off from the rest of the world, with no concern for democracy, climate change, human rights, or Africa.
The Times reported:
A draft of a Trump administration executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.
The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.
The purpose of the executive order, which could be signed soon by President Trump, is to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” according to a copy of the 16-page draft order obtained by The New York Times. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.
Some of the proposed changes outlined in the draft document would require congressional notification and no doubt be challenged by lawmakers, including mass closures of diplomatic missions and headquarters bureaus, as well as an overhaul of the diplomatic corps. Substantial parts of it, if officials tried to enact them, would likely face lawsuits.
Elements of the executive order could change before final White House review or before Mr. Trump signs it, if he decides to do so. Neither the State Department nor the White House National Security Council had immediate comment on the draft order early Sunday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote a short comment on social media after this article was published calling it “fake news…”
Major structural changes to the State Department would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The department would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave and sending out notices of termination, they said.
The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”
The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”
The proposed reorganization would get rid of regional bureaus that help make and enact policy in large parts of the globe.
Instead, the draft says, those functions would fall under four “corps”: Eurasia Corps, consisting of Europe, Russia and Central Asia; Mid-East Corps, consisting of Arab nations, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Latin America Corps, consisting of Central America, South America and the Caribbean; and Indo-Pacific Corps, consisting of East Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
One of the most drastic proposed changes would be eliminating the bureau of African affairs, which oversees policy in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be replaced by a much smaller special envoy office for African affairs that would report to the White House National Security Council. The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”
The draft also said all “nonessential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa would be closed by Oct. 1. Diplomats would be sent to Africa on “targeted, mission-driven deployments,” the document said.
Canada operations would be put into a new North American affairs office under Mr. Rubio’s authority, and it would be run by a “significantly reduced team,” the draft said. The department would also severely shrink the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
California State University (CSU) will make generative artificial intelligence technologies like ChatGPT available to students, staff and faculty across its 23 campuses at no personal cost to them in anticipation that AI will reshape higher education and the state’s workforce.
Seeking to train students in AI skills and boost their career prospects, CSU will also be part of a new body, called the AI Workforce Acceleration Board, according to an announcement Tuesday at San Jose State University. That panel will include CSU academic leaders and representatives from the governor’s office as well as firms like Microsoft, IBM and artificial-intelligence chip manufacturer Nvidia.
“This initiative will elevate the CSU student experience, enhancing student success with personalized and future-focused learning tools across all fields of study, and preparing our increasingly AI-driven workforce,” Chancellor Mildred García said at a news conference.
The AI Workforce Acceleration Board will aim to ensure that CSU students are prepared for AI-related jobs or graduate school when they finish their degrees, CSU officials said.The board will also organize events challenging CSU students and faculty to useAI to help address problems like climate change and housing affordability.
In addition, CSU plans to facilitate faculty use of AI in their teaching and research. It will also connect students to AI-related apprenticeship programs, according to the announcement.
The rise of artificial intelligence has provoked optimistic predictions that the technology will trigger rapid innovation in higher education — equipping students with chatbot tutors, administrators with the ability to automate rote tasks and scholars with models that advance their research. But those bright visions are counterbalanced by fears AI will erode the value of a college degree, undermine the academic integrity of research and unleash widespread AI-assisted cheating in classrooms.
California leaders have been eager to cement the state’s place as a leader in developing generative AI, and say there is a need to educate more home-grown talent to work in the sector. More than half of AI workers in the U.S. were born in other countries, according to a 2019 report by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
CSU’s focus on artificial intelligence comes at a time when campuses across the university system, especially those struggling with troubling enrollment downturns, are looking to trim costs ahead of an expected state budget cut. Noting that financial reality, CSU chief information officer Ed Clark said the chancellor’s office has allocated money from one-time savings to fund AI initiatives.“The truth is, we are piecemealing it,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have available one-time, and we’re going to have to do the same thing next year as well.”
Among the tools CSU is adopting is OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu, a version of the chatbot already in use at higher education institutions including Arizona State University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Unlike the free version of ChatGPT, conversations using ChatGPT Edu will stay within CSU and cannot be used to train OpenAI models, Clark said. Data privacy is a particular concern for universities, since users may wish to use ChatGPT to analyze sensitive or confidential information.
An OpenAI official said the agreement with CSU represents the “single largest deployment of ChatGPT around the world.” By negotiating a system-wide deal with OpenAI, Clark said, CSU is making sure the technology is available to all of its campuses, not just those that can afford to purchase enterprise access to ChatGPT on their own.
The university will pay about $16.9 million over the lifetime of its partnership with OpenAI, which is “less than current and planned expenditures for these technologies,” a CSU spokesperson said.
Generative AI tools from other companies will also be made available to CSU affiliates, including functions within software the university system already purchases, such as Microsoft Office and Zoom video conferencing. The system also plans to offer AI training modules to teach students, faculty and staff members skills like prompt engineering while guiding them on how to use the technology in a responsible way. Training provided by Nvidia will come with compute power so students can learn to work with GPUs, the electronic circuits used to train and deploy AI models, said Louis Stewart, the company’s head of strategic initiatives.
CSU officials are still determining the final lineup of the board, Clark said, but anticipate that it will include members of Newsom’s cabinet as well as representatives of Adobe, Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon Web Services, Instructure, Intel, LinkedIn and OpenAI. Clark said CSU-affiliated members will include Elizabeth Boyd, chair of the academic senate; Cynthia Teniente-Matson, the president of San Jose State University; Iese Esera, the president of the Cal State Student Association; and Clark himself.
Universities have varied in their embrace of artificial intelligence technology, with some eagerly hiring administrators and faculty knowledgeable about the field or updating policies around issues like academic integrity to account for AI.
CSU leaders have been contemplating the impact generative artificial intelligence will have on campuses for several years, including in the system-wide academic senate. A CSU committee in June released a list of recommendations for how the university system should incorporate AI.
The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU employees including professors, librarians and coaches, is seeking to add an article to its contract with CSU regarding the use of AI, citing concerns that adoption of the technology could “replace roles at the University that will make it difficult or impossible to solve classroom, human resources, or other issues” and otherwise negatively impact CFA members. Faculty unions outside CSU have voiced related worries.
California officials are giving students an extra month to meet the state financial aid priority deadline, saying fewer high school seniors have finished paperwork so far this year due to delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and uncertainty about federal education policy and immigration enforcement.
The California Student Aid Commission, whose executive director approved the 30-day extension from March 3 to April 2, reported a 25% drop in the number of California high school seniors who have completed financial aid applications this year compared with the same point in 2023.
The April 2 state priority deadline is the date by which students planning to attend a four-year institution must file applications for most state aid programs, including the Cal Grant. Students seeking Cal Grants to attend a community college can apply through Sept. 2. Students have until June 30, 2026, to complete the application for federal awards like Pell Grants.
The decline in completed applications is due in part to a two-month delay to the start of thefederal2025-26 financial aid application cycle, commission officials said. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, opened on Dec. 1 following the troubled rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA. The form is typically available to students on Oct. 1.
People who work directly with students also say that concerns about the administration of President Donald Trump are giving some families pause about whether to file for federal student aid this year. The decision is especially fraught for students with undocumented family members in light of Trump administration rhetoric promising an unprecedented crackdown on unauthorized immigration. Federal law bars the use of data submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, for any use other than determining financial aid, but both the National College Attainment Network and the California Student Aid Commission have cautioned mixed-status families that the federal form may not protect their data going forward. The California commission has recommended that families fearful of federal immigration enforcement complete the California Dream Act Application, or CADAA, a state financial aid program that does not share information with the federal government.
“Some of the parents are saying, ‘If they take me, they take me. But my kid is going to apply for financial aid for college’,” said Jasmin Pivaral, senior director of college culture at the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization that works with five high schools in Los Angeles Unified. “It’s been really sad and really challenging to hear that parents are having to make this difficult decision, and we have no sense right now what kind of mental toll this is taking on students.”
The Trump administration has also threatened to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and pursued other efforts to freeze federal funding. Linda Doughty, the director of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Cal-SOAP Consortium, which works to boost college participation,said some families have mistakenly concluded that federal student aid will not be available next school year as a result.
“Our parents thought they canceled financial aid,” said Doughty, whose group is helping to organize several free financial aid workshops at area schools this weekend. “That’s misinformation.”
Doughty and her Cal-SOAP colleagues are among the organizations around the state working with the commission to host Cash for College workshops where students and their families can get advice from financial aid experts to file the FAFSA or CADAA. As of Thursday morning, there were 140 such workshops scheduled virtually as well as in person in cities including Bakersfield, Norwalk and San Bernardino.
EdSource reporter Zaidee Stavely contributed to this article.
Ending several months of uncertainty, the California State Board of Education on Wednesday chose new labels to describe how students perform on the four levels of achievement on its standardized tests.
The decision was difficult. The 90 minutes of presentations and discussions offered lessons in the subtleties of language and the inferences of words.
Board members said they were aware of the need to send the right messages to many parents, who had criticized the California Department of Education’s previous choices for labeling low test scores as vague euphemisms for bad news.
“Labels matter,” said board member Francisco Escobedo, executive director of the National Center for Urban Transformation at San Diego State. “Knowledge is a continuum, and how we describe students in different levels has a powerful impact.”’
Researchers have warned that parents are getting confusing messages, with inflated grades on courses and declining scores on standardized tests of how well their children are doing in recovering from Covid setbacks in learning. The new labels will apply to scoring levels for the state science assessments and for the Smarter Balanced English language arts and math tests.
Board members quickly agreed on “Advanced” for Level 4 and “Proficient” for Level 3 labels, the top two levels of scores. But their selection of “Developing” for Level 2 and “Minimal” for Level 1 differed from the consensus of parents, students and teachers who had been offered various options during focus groups in December and January.
They had preferred “Basic” for Level 2 and “Below Basic” for Level 1. The terms are clear, simple and familiar, a summary of the discussions said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies Basic as the lowest of its three levels, and California’s old state tests, which the state abandoned a decade ago to switch to Smarter Balanced, used Basic and Below Basic for scoring criteria as well.
But for some veteran educators on the board, familiarity has bred contempt, or at least bad memories, of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Schools were under heavy pressure to increase their math and English language arts scores, or potentially face sanctions.
“I had a visceral reaction to the word Basic,” said board member and veteran teacher Haydee Rodriguez. “I remember NCLB and how finite that felt for students.” The feedback should be encouraging, not a label that discourages growth, as Basic did under NCLB, she said.
She and Kim Patillo Brownson, a parent of two teenagers who served as a policy director at the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, also pointed out that “basic” has a different connotation for students in 2025. It’s slang for a boring and uninteresting person.
“Calling a student Basic is an absolute insult in 2025,” said Rodriguez. “It could shut a child down.”
Board President Linda Darling-Hammond agreed. “If Basic is being used derogatorily, one can only imagine how Below Basic will be used. It is a real consideration; the meaning is different for adults.”
Board members turned to other words that had been presented to the focus groups. They agreed the choices should be frank, not Pollyannaish or dispiriting.
With Level 2, the purpose should be “trying to light a fire under parents to realize there is work to do,” said Patillo Brownson.
Stating that “Below Basic” says a student is failing, Escobedo preferred “Developing” for Level 1 and “Emerging” for Level 2. These terms are consistent with labels used for scoring the progress of English learners.
Patillo Brownson called Emerging “vague” and supported “Basic.”
Board Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods, who was chief academic officer of the Riverside County Office of Education before her retirement, favored “Minimum” for Level 1 because “it is important we are clear for students and parents that students scoring at the level have a minimal understanding of grade-level knowledge.”
Sharing the perspective of her peers, the student board member on the board, Julia Clauson, a senior at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, recommended substituting “Approaching” for “Basic,” so as not to deter students from trying challenging courses. “Older students make academic decisions (based on what signals they get), so language matters,” she said.
The County Superintendents association also endorsed “Approaching” for Level 2 and “Developing” or “Emerging” for Level 1.
The board initiated what turned into a multi-month decision because of growing dissatisfaction with the labels that had been used since the first Smarter Balanced testing in 2015. They were Standard Not Met for Level 1, Standard Nearly Met for Level 2, Standard Met for Level 3 and Standard Exceeded for Level 4. Focus groups by the California Department of Education found that parents were confused about what “standard” meant. They found Standard Not Met as discouraging and Standard Nearly Met as unclear.
But a coalition of student advocacy groups, including Teach Plus, Children Now and Innovate Public Schools, along with the County Superintendents association and the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the labels for Levels 1 and 2 that the California Department of Education recommended as their replacements as soft-pedaling euphemisms for poor scorers. The department had proposed Inconsistent for Level 1 and Foundational for Level 2.
At its December meeting, the board told the department to try again with more focus groups.
Changing the labels to Advanced, Proficient, Developing and Minimal won’t change how scores are determined; the individual scores within each achievement band have remained the same in all the 18 member states that take all or some of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are given to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, usually in 11th grade.
However, additional work is needed to communicate the changes to parents and students. The department and its testing contractor, ETS, will spell out the differences between performing at the various levels in each subject and grade and the level of improvement needed to raise scores.
Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarter Balanced, pointed out that performance differences are a continuum with students showing gaps in some grade-level skills but not others. A student scoring at Level 1 may have answered some questions showing knowledge at grade level. As scores progress from Levels 2 to 4, students demonstrate increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills.
Students who reach Level 3 have the knowledge to succeed in future coursework. Research has determined that for California high school students, Level 3 correlates with preparation for first-year courses at California State University.
The state board hoped that the label changes and new explanations would be ready for this spring’s testing results. Instead, they will take effect in 2026.
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently on the campus in Rohnert Park. Division II sports are on the chopping block to save money.
Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource
On the soccer pitch, inthe physics classroom and in the office of a trusted professor, students at Sonoma State University are confronting a demoralizing challenge: What happens if my program gets cut?
The Rohnert Park campus, 50 miles north of San Francisco, has announced a contentious proposal to close a $24 million budget deficit by nixing six academic departments entirely, eliminating about two dozenmajor degree programs and cutting all NCAA Division II sports, among other measures.
Sonoma State’s experience is the most dire example of the cost reductions at many of the 23 Cal State campuses, which in total serve more than 450,000 students around the state. The university system’s leaders say cuts are prompted by an anticipated decrease in state funding, rising costs and, on some campuses,slumping enrollment figures. The number of students at Sonoma State has plunged dramatically, from 9,400 students in 2015 to a nadir of about 5,800 in2024.
On a recentvisit to the campus, an EdSource reporter spent time with students, faculty and coachesdirectly impacted by the expected cuts. The most defiant promised to fight for reprieves or backed state legislators’ demands for a turnaround plan. This month, some students sued to try to block proposed cuts.
But mostly, students and faculty expressed worry that this could be the last time a Sonoma State undergraduate sees the advanced math explaining why light moves more slowly in air than in a vacuum, ponders the differences between second and third wave feminism or masters the subtle finesse of playing one-touch soccer in the rain.
Geology: ‘All of that will be gone’
Jackson Kaiser grew up at the foot of Mount Konocti in Lake County, part of a volcanic field three hours north of San Francisco that feeds what is reckoned to be the largest geothermal complex in the world. “I had a lot of questions that I didn’t know how to answer,” he said. And that’s why he majored in geology at Sonoma State University.
But the department that has turned Kaiser’s curiosity into a promising career may soon disappear.Kaiser could be among the last 40 or so Sonoma State geology majors, according to a professor in the department, if the university goes ahead with plans to eliminate the department. Sonoma State spokesperson Jeff Keating confirmed that all tenured and tenure-track geology faculty have received layoff notices, though several may be asked to teach temporarily.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Kaiser reverently held his favorite rock samples in theclassroom where geology majors take most of their classes. “The idea that that place won’t be here to come back to, that I won’t have an alma mater — it feels like our administration doesn’t want me to be a proud Seawolf,” he said,referring to the campus mascot.
Student Jackson Kaiser, who grew up fascinated by a volcanic field near a large geothermal complex north of San Francisco, laments that he may be among the last geology majors at Sonoma State.Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, 36, was working in the produce department of a Safeway grocery store when he found himself researching the chemical formulas of minerals. He marveled at their straight lines and geometric forms, so elegant they appear unnatural. He wanted to know more.
So around 2022,Kaiser, his partner and their two children, now 4 and 6, started commuting an hour and half or more every weekday from Lake County to Sonoma State, sending the kids to the Children’s School on campus while both parents took undergraduate classes. These days, Kaiser bunks with classmates from Monday to Friday, returning home to his family on weekends. “It’s not great,” he said. “But I’m working towards a better future, where I’ll have a real career and not just be working in a grocery store.”
His chosen career can have high stakes. After all, Kaiser said, it was a careful geological study in the 1960s that ultimately blocked a plan to build a nuclear power plant just 30 minutes from campus on a site traversed by the San Andreas Fault. A geological assessment is often a necessity for construction projects, especially in a region where debris flows can follow climate change-fueled wildfires. But geologists worry their numbers are waning despite growing demand for their skills.
A geology classroom on the campus of Sonoma State University on Feb. 12,Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, who will graduate at the end of the summer, has been collecting business cards from potential employers like geologic consulting firms. Thanks to the department’s frequent field trips, he’s had opportunities to practice skills like mapping, sample collection and paleontology.
He’s also taken part in department traditions, like feasting on watermelon at the summit after mountainous hikes or visiting the mammoth fossil that Sonoma State students excavated in 1981. “I hate the thought,” he said, “that all of that will be gone.”
Soccer: ‘Play all the way through’
The weather was lousy, but there they were in the rain at 9:15 a.m., the Sonoma State University men’s soccer team, lacing up their boots and stowing their belongings in white garbage bags to keep them dry. They had come from nearby Santa Rosa and far away Kapolei, Hawaii, to attendthe university. Together, they navigated the difficult reality that this could be their team’s last season,no matter how well they played.
There was Carson Sterling, a freshman center back from 18 miles north in Windsor, whose father and mother played soccer for Sonoma State before him. There was defender Cameron Fisk, a junior from Los Angeles studying business marketing, who had rebounded from injuries to play this fall.And, of course, there washead coach Marcus Ziemer, leading the Seawolves for the 34th year.
Ziemer watched the players warm up, his eyes shielded from the drizzle under a black baseball cap and glasses. Since he started as head coach in 1991, the men’s soccer team has won eight conference championships and earned its first and only national title in 2002.
But now things are grim. The university announced on Jan. 22 that it planned to eliminate men’s soccer along with the school’s other NCAA sports, among other austerities.
“It’s a very difficult kind of limbo right now,” he said. “We’re fighting hard to try and save the program and some of the other majors as well, trying to get them to reconsider.”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices recently in Rohnert Park. With the school’s whole Division II sports program potentially being cut, some team players are looking to transfer through the NCAA portal.Amy DiPierro
Ziemer himself is in limbo, too. Unless efforts to save the Sonoma State Division II sports programs succeed, his contract will end on June 30. He would probably retire rather than seek another coaching job.
In the meantime, Ziemer and his four assistant coaches have advised players who wish to continue their collegiate soccer careers to enter the NCAA transfer portal,expressing interest in moving to other schools. A few already have offers.
“I’m just grateful that with everything going on, we have coaches like them that are willing to help us and see other opportunities,” said Fisk, who has entered the transfer portal while the Sonoma State team’s status is uncertain.
But for now, the team’s focus was on preparing the Seawolves for a challenging spring season, including matchups against NCAA Division I and semi-professional sides. Practice started with dynamic stretches, then a frenetic game of keep-away and a shooting drill to loosen quads grown stiff in the damp.
“The energy is still really high,” said Sterling, who is in talks with soccer programs at other schools. “Obviously, it’s a kind of bad situation, and we’re just hoping for the best. But we’re going to play all the way through no matter what, and we’re going to play hard for each other.”
The squad split into teams for a scrimmage, an assistant coach barking urgent encouragement as they played. He called a time-out. “What does it take? Communication. Thinking one pass, two passes, three passes ahead. Moving, adjusting, being aware,” he yelled, his voice booming over the slick turf. “So because we’re struggling, should we say, ‘Ehh, f— it, move on.’? Or should we grow through it? Let’s grow through it — let’s grow through it together!”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently in Rohnert Park.Amy DiPierro
Women’s and gender studies: ‘I didn’t get that anywhere else’
Under the fluorescent lights of a windowless basement classroom, Xochilt Martinez Balladares and about 20 other students eagerly awaited a discussion on queer and trans theory. But before they could unpack works by critical heavyweights like Adrienne Rich, they trained their attention on an issuecloser at hand: the plan to dismantle the Sonoma State University Women’s and Gender Studies Department.
If the proposal goes forward, Sonoma State will offer the last women’s and gender studies classes in spring 2026. That could mark the end of a more than 50-year run that started with the founding of the program in the early 1970s and evolved into the Women’s and Gender Studies Department in 2001. Several students said the plan compounds their feeling that historically marginalized groups are under attack as the Trump administration seeks to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Martinez and her classmates also argued that the department teaches skills central to future careers, while providing community when they need it most. For Martinez, a women’s and gender studies major and Chicano and Latino studies minor, the long-term goal is to go into immigration law. In the short-term, she is considering a social work degree so she can work with at-risk youth and families.
“I almost dropped out twice because I felt very out of place,” said Martinez, 32. But she persevered thanks to a women’s and gender studies instructor who “talked to me on a personal level and made sure that I could continue my education. I didn’t get that anywhere else.”
The department typically attracts 25 to 35 majors a year, said Don Romesburg, the professor who teaches the theory course, but many more students who aren’t majors take its classes. Campus spokesperson Keating confirmed that all the department’s professors have been laid off, but said the university “will continue to support and encourage the teaching of courses that support women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Janis Phillips, 46,an education graduate student, said the loss of the department makes her question whether the university shares her commitment to students’ social and emotional learning.
“When students feel safe and seen and heard on campuses, that is one of the best predictors of academic success,” she said, facing her classmates around the circle of desks. “So to take a bunch of students and make them feel like they are not seen and not heard will be detrimental to their academic success.”
Students said the major prepares them for careers as psychologists, marriage and family therapists or health care providers. Because majors have to complete a community service requirement, students work with local organizations that help unhoused families, prevent sexual assault and support LGBTQ youth. “We’ve really taken seriously this question that parents often ask their students, which is, ‘What would you do with that degree?’” Romesburg said.
Despite the uncertain future of the department, students are doing the reading, Romesburg said, mindful that those who come behind them might not get the same opportunity. “They’re ready to roll up their sleeves and do project-based work, where they’re really generating ideas and reflections and engaging with the material,” he said.
A flier is posted to a bulletin board on the campus of Sonoma State University.
Physics: ‘Watching something that you love die’
The physics students filing into Scott Severson’s 9:30 a.m. optics class brightened with the wide-eyed surprise of children peeking at a gift: a sturdy wooden crate.
“It’s Christmas in our labs,” Severson said, gesturing toward the crate, which was filled with professional-gradelaboratory hardware. “We ordered this in better days,” he added, and a few students chuckled.
The Sonoma State Physics and Astronomy Department has indeed seen better days. Its alumni have gone on to lead companies, earn advanced degrees and become professors themselves. One of the department’s proudest moments came in 2016, when professor Lynn Cominsky was part of the team that documented a phenomenon called gravitational waves, an achievement that won three of her collaboratorsthe Nobel Prize. Cominsky said she has raised more than $43 million in grants for Sonoma State.
Such prestige has not shielded the Physics and Astronomy Department from cost-cutting plans. Though the department will avoid total elimination, Sonoma State plans to phase out its physics major. It is giving 30 majors two years to graduate and leaving 10 first-year students to find another degree or transfer, Severson said. After that, physics faculty memberswill only teach physics courses for students in other programs, like biology or engineering.
Already, one of the department’s lecturers has received a layoff notice, according to the university. Severson said he and three other remaining tenured faculty will cover the teaching load as the physics degree winds down. He doesn’t anticipate that tenured faculty will lose their jobs, but said some may seek work elsewhere or retire.
Troy Wilson and Jeffery Reedy at Sonoma State University demonstrate an experiment created as part of a program aimed at introducing middle and high school students to STEM fields on Feb. 12.Amy DiPierro
Ending the physics major also could reverberate at Cominsky’s EdEon STEM Learning program, which creates educational materials aimed at inspiring middle and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
EdEon’s work depends on Sonoma State undergraduates, Cominsky said, and currently employs between 15 and 20 students in fields including physics. “None of the research grants I write would have been possible without physics majors,” she said.
Meanwhile, the students in Severson’s optics class watched as he played them a video illustrating the spiral of two black holes.
“I want you to notice the colors of this,” said Severson, who has taught at the university since 2007. “The brighter the red, the greater the distortion of spacetime as this is happening.”
Among the optics students was Madison Ambriz, who plans to graduate at the end of fall 2025.Ambriz spent the summer learning to assemble circuit boards as part of a collaboration to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider, a famed particle accelerator used to test physicists’ theoretical predictions. “I had such a blast with it,” she said, but her enthusiasm has been tempered by the feeling that it’s too late to save the major.
“It doesn’t matter what we say, doesn’t matter how heartbroken we are, doesn’t matter what the numbers say, they’re still going to cut the [major],” Ambriz said. “And it’s just watching something that you love die, and it’s horrible.”
Wisconsin Public Radio reported that State Superintendent Jill Underly has announced that the state will not comply with a letter from U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in which she directed states to agree with the Trump administration about stamping out diversity, equity, and inclusion. Trump wants to eliminate DEI, which would involve reversing compliance with existing civil rights law. In addition, although McMahon may not know it, she is violating federal law by attempting to influence curriculum and instruction in the schools.
Thank you, Superintendent Underly!
WPR reported:
Wisconsin school districts won’t comply with a directive from the Trump administration to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs until districts have more information.
On Wednesday, state Superintendent Jill Underly asked the U.S. Department of Education for clarification on both the intent and legality of an April 3 directive that schools sign a letter acknowledging they’re following the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws.
This school year, Wisconsin received about $216 million in Title I funds. About $82 million of that money went to Milwaukee Public Schools.
Underly said the request from the Department of Education potentially violates required procedural steps, is unnecessarily redundant and appears designed to intimidate school districts by threatening to withhold critical education funding.
“We cannot stand by while the current administration threatens our schools with unnecessary and potentially unlawful mandates based on political beliefs,” Underly said in a statement. “Our responsibility is to ensure Wisconsin students receive the best education possible, and that means allowing schools to make local decisions based on what is best for their kids and their communities.”
On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter giving educational institutions 14 days to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding.
At that time, the state DPI issued guidance to school districts encouraging a “measured and thoughtful approach, rather than immediate or reactionary responses to the federal government’s concerns.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has not clearly defined what the administration considers a violation of civil rights law. The February letter said institutions must “cease using race preferences and stereotypes as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, scholarship.”
In a related document addressing frequently asked questions about how the administration would interpret Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the agency said: “Many schools have advanced discriminatory policies and practices under the banner of ‘DEI’ initiatives.”
The document went on to say that schools could engage in historical observances like Black History Month, “so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”
