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  • Cal State graduation rates remain flat for second consecutive year

    Cal State graduation rates remain flat for second consecutive year


    Credit: Noah Lyons / EdSource

    California State University’s four-year graduation rates remain flat for the 23-campus system just two years before the end of a 10-year deadline to dramatically improve them.

    The system announced Monday during its Graduation Initiative 2025 symposium in San Diego that rates remain unchanged from last year for first-time students. Preliminary data shows the four-year graduation rate remains unchanged from last year at 35%. The system’s 2025 goal is 40%. The six-year graduation rate for first-time students also remains the same as last year at 62%. The 2025 goal is 70%.

    Graduation rates for transfers also remain flat this year, although the two-year transfer rate increased by 1 percentage point from last year to 41%. The 2025 two-year transfer goal is 45%. However, four-year transfer rates slightly decreased from 80% last year to 79% this year. The 2025 four-year transfer goal is 85%.

    Despite the stall, Cal State has doubled its four-year graduation rates from 19%, when the 2025 graduation initiative was created in 2015. And since 2016, the CSU has contributed to an additional 150,000 bachelor’s degrees earned.

    “We have no shortages of challenges ahead,” CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia said during the symposium. “Persistent opportunity gaps continue to shortchange our students and our state. There is a greater need now, more than ever, to expand access and affordability, to proactively recruit and serve students of all ages and stages. Not only to elevate lives but to power California’s economic and social vitality.”

    However, graduation equity gaps persist throughout the system. The gap between Black, Latino and Native American students and their peers increased by 1 point this year to a 13% difference. The graduation rate for Black students is at 47%. And the socioeconomic gap in graduation rates between low-income and higher-income students increased to 12%, said Jeff Gold, assistant vice chancellor for student success in the chancellor’s office.

    “Graduation rates, although they are at all-time highs, have stagnated,” Gold said, adding that the system has been stuck at a 62% six-year graduation rate since 2020.

    Jennifer Baszile, Cal State’s associate vice chancellor of student success and inclusive excellence, said the system is proud of its work to increase rates since 2015, but “we still know there is more work ahead.”

    “Across the country, institutions have seen a growth in equity gaps,” Baszile said, adding that much of that is due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the pressure on students to work or take care of their families.

    But the chancellor’s office is also working on strategies to understand and intervene where it can to improve the college experience for low-income and students of color, she said. For example, former interim Chancellor Jolene Koester assembled a strategic workgroup on Black student success to study trends and improve education for that group of students.

    Cal State will release more data, including graduation rates by campus and race, over the next several weeks.

    “While the CSU’s collective focus on our ambitious goals has resulted in graduation rates at or near all-time highs, there is still much to accomplish in the coming years,” Chancellor Garcia said. “We will boldly re-imagine our work to remove barriers and close equity gaps for our historically marginalized students — America’s new majority — as we continue to serve as the nation’s most powerful driver of socioeconomic mobility.”





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  • A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover

    A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover


    LAUSD Superintendent Albert Carvalho at the Aug. 30, 2022 school board meeting.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Last fall, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said he would recover Covid-19 pandemic learning loss in two years. 

    One year later — and half way to that goal post — the 2023 California Smarter Balanced test scores revealed a small improvement in math scores, a minimal decline in English language arts scores and poor science scores in comparison to the previous year — and is still about 3 percentage points away from the pre-Covid-19 numbers, where roughly 44% of students met English language arts standards and about 33% met math standards in the 2018-2019 academic year, according to the CAASPP dashboard.

    With its scores remaining largely stagnant, Jia Wang, a professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, said getting scores back to 2018-19 levels is a “very ambitious goal” — but not out of the question. 

    The district’s ability to make up the lost ground, she said, depends on how well it supports struggling students. 

    But more than a year after Carvalho’s lofty promise to the district, many teachers and parents remain skeptical, and say the diagnostic tools and expanded interventions the district relies on to boost academic achievement are poorly implemented. 

    LAUSD’s test scores 

    Carvalho said he believes LAUSD’s Smarter Balanced test scores across subject areas accurately reflect where the district’s students are academically — but he remains confident that the district will meet its goals and fully recover on time. 

    This year, LAUSD saw a 2.01% increase in the rate of LAUSD students who met or exceeded standards in mathematics. Overall, 30.5% of students either met or exceeded the standards, while 69.5% failed to do so. 

    “Math was our Achilles’ heel. That’s why we went really strongly into math, and results are compelling. But math is a subject area that requires foundational skills that build upon each other, right? So you don’t transition to … multiplication, division of fractions until you master addition, subtraction, and you really understand numerator and denominator,” Carvalho said in an Oct. 25  interview with EdSource. 

    “If you don’t master that, you cannot advance. So, there are a lot of students who are stuck in a loop. They lack certain basic concepts.” 

    The district’s English language arts scores, however, decreased; 41% of students either met or exceeded state requirements in the subject — marking a 0.53 percentage point across-the-board drop from the previous year. 

    Carvalho described Los Angeles Unified’s ELA scores as a “mixed bag,” with some elementary grades “moving in the right direction” and other upper elementary and middle school grades in need of improvement. 

    Middle school grades had some of the district’s lowest English scores, with 38.62% meeting or exceeding standards in sixth grade and 38.9% of students either meeting or exceeding standards in eighth grade. 

    Of the core subject areas, LAUSD students struggled the most in science — with only 22% of students either meeting or exceeding state standards. The state’s average, in comparison, was about 30%. 

    Because the district has focused on recovering learning losses in English and math, Carvalho said, subjects such as science and social studies have fallen by the wayside and emphasized a need for that to change. 

    “Science often becomes a stepchild. It cannot be,” Carvalho said. “There are four major core content subject areas, and science and social science should not be on the back burner.” 

    These scores across subject areas can help illustrate the district’s progress in relationship to previous years and the state as a whole, Wang said. 

    But she said they also oversimplify students’ performance, which is “compounded by race and ethnicity, by the language proficiency, by the disability, by your school environment, school resources, you know … whether the students are taught by certified teachers or not, how many years of experience.”

    Pressure to move students forward regardless of academic performance 

    Another reason some remain skeptical about Carvalho’s goals is the practice of promoting students to the next grade level even when they have not met standards in core disciplines. 

    Raquel Diaz wanted her now 13-year-old daughter Hailey — an English learner with dyslexia — to be held back and repeat fourth grade because she was struggling. 

    “It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand everything right now. Your goal should always be: I can, and yes I can achieve it,” Diaz said she tells her daughter, according to an interview with EdSource that was translated into English. “Even if you are slower like a turtle, it does not matter. We will achieve it.” 

    Diaz said the school refused to hold Hailey back, and now she is a seventh grader who cannot read.  

    “We have to fight for our children and make (the schools) listen to us, so we can move forward,” Diaz said. “I am a single mother … and sometimes I get tired. I get frustrated. But I say ‘Oh, God, give me strength.’ Come on, I have to do it for them.” 

    Hailey has plenty of company among students with disabilities and English learners. 

    In the 2022-23 academic year, students with disabilities had some of the lowest standardized test scores in LAUSD — with about 12% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and only 8% meeting or exceeding math standards. 

    English learners also had disproportionately low scores in all areas, with about 4% meeting or exceeding the state’s English standards and almost 7% meeting the standards in math. 

    Even in cases where students are not meeting state standards, teachers say they feel pressure to promote them to the next grade level. 

    Carvalho said the trend of moving unprepared students up a grade is an “uncomfortable truth” and represents a “disconnect between what students can do versus what is taught to them.” 

    An LAUSD teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation told EdSource that in April 2021, her school’s principal had notified the teachers that “no student can be retained.” 

    “There is a lot of pressure … even more so as secondary teachers, to not give D’s and F’s … even if the student is doing no work,” the teacher said. 

    “The students’ needs aren’t being met, and they’re really going to struggle,” adding that many will drop out. “A lot of kids, especially older kids, are not coming to school because they’re struggling so much, and it’s so negative. … It just becomes worse and worse.” 

    Challenges in the classroom

    Part of Carvalho’s confidence in LAUSD’s ability to recover Covid learning losses is the 1,000 literacy interventionists hired to work with smaller groups of students on their specific needs as well as the district’s implementation of iReady, an online tool that teachers can use for diagnostic assessments and learning exercises. 

    Wang, the UCLA professor, said that while there is no perfect metric for students’ academic performance, learning support funneled into classrooms is just as important as student output.

    “Instead of just saying ‘here’s what the student produced,’ I also want to see information about what is being put into the classroom,” Wang said. “What kind of supports are being given to students (to) ensure they are given the opportunity to learn?” 

    Some teachers are claiming that the rollout of LAUSD’s intervention programs, where struggling students are pulled aside for additional support, has been challenging, starting with the diagnostic tool used to determine who is placed into intervention programs.

    Teachers who run the district’s intervention programs are supposed to rely on iReady to determine students’ levels of proficiency in reading and math and use the results to decide who needs additional support. 

    That diagnostic tool is available between August and October, according to a district spokesperson. 

    “Students continue to enroll throughout the first few weeks of school, and the window provides flexibility to schools,” the spokesperson said. “Schools were guided and supported to provide the best time to administer the assessment based on school needs. We aimed to ensure that teachers had ample time, support and training to successfully implement this assessment.”  

    That deadline, however, was too late, according to teachers, who stressed that the testing window takes up more than a month, causing interventions to start too late in the school year. 

    Once teachers determine who needs the extra help, elementary instructors carve out a schedule for different groups to be pulled out — a task some say has been challenging, given large blocks of “protected time.”

    “Trying to make a schedule at a school site is very difficult because there’s so many other things going on on campus, and so it really ended up taking students in the same class together. But that doesn’t mean … those are students who should be together based on their needs,” the teacher said. 

    In middle school, students are pulled aside for an intervention tutorial that takes the place of an elective, a district math teacher and interventionist who also wished to remain anonymous told EdSource. 

    “I don’t want them to hate math because they have math twice,” the teacher said. “I don’t give homework. I don’t give tests. … I tell them this class is to help your grade in the other classes, to get you better at math.” 

    During these tutorial sessions, the teacher uses iReady and other techniques that can also give students practice problems targeted at their individual levels. 

    iReady, according to an LAUSD spokesperson, has a participation rate above 95%, and technical difficulties have been “minimal to nonexistent.”  

    But the teacher said the tool is sometimes challenging because she can’t see the personalized programming created for each of her students and the problems they are assigned.  

    With other online tools, she can go through the problems herself, “pretending I’m them to see if it’s doable, and to see where spots might come up that might be difficult for them,” the teacher said. But with iReady, she “can’t find a way to figure out how I can do that. And that makes it difficult for me to know what they’re getting so I can support them.”

    While some teachers remain optimistic about LAUSD’s initiatives to boost achievement, several said they would like to see more support from higher up.

    “It just seems like … what we do is considered a very low priority on a school campus,” the elementary teacher said. “But the expectations on us are very high. And I kind of just feel like we’re being … set up to fail.” 





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  • California School Dashboard released for the 2022-23 School Year

    California School Dashboard released for the 2022-23 School Year


    Students work together during an after-school tutoring club.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    For the first time since 2019, the California Department of Education has fully updated the California School Dashboard that tracks the annual progress of K-12 students on factors such as standardized test scores, chronic absenteeism, suspensions and graduation rates.

    Since its rollout in 2017, the dashboard aims to show the progress of students at the state, district and school level using a color-coded system. It breaks this information down by 13 student subgroups, such as English language learners, disabled students and race and ethnicity. Friday’s update provides a snapshot of the progress made between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years, representing the aftermath of the pandemic’s peak.

    Red signals the poorest performance, followed by orange, yellow and green, while blue signals the best performance. State officials say that anything below green indicates the need for attention and improvement. Amidst the pandemic, the state stopped releasing this information in 2020.

    The dashboard relies on some data, such as test scores and chronic absences, that was released in October. Other data — such as graduation rates and how many students met the entrance requirements to California universities, one measure of career and college readiness — were released Friday.

    For the first time, this year’s dashboard adds a color-coded score to measure how many English learners are making progress toward proficiency on the English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC).

    On chronic absenteeism and English learner progress, the state’s status was yellow, a midway point between blue and red. The state’s status was orange — the second-worst status — for its suspension rate, graduation rate and performance on standardized tests for mathematics and English language arts.

    State officials said the results demonstrate California schools are making progress in the wake of the pandemic, which witnessed sharp declines in standardized test scores and a surge in chronic absenteeism.

    “Recovery from the pandemic has been a long process all across the country,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, in a statement. “While we have a long way to go, these results show that California is making strides, especially in enabling students to get to school and graduate ready for college and careers.”

    The rate of students graduating from high school who met the minimum course requirements to attend a CSU or UC reached an all-time high: 45.15%. That number has continued to steadily increase throughout the pandemic, up from 41.24% in 2016-17.

    The statewide four-year graduation rate is 86.2%, a decline from last year’s all-time high of 87%. State officials attribute 2021-22’s peak to a loosening of state graduation requirements and grading policies at the height of the pandemic. Officials say this most recent dip is due to a return to pre-pandemic policies.

    The dashboard’s color coding system takes into account both whether a metric is high or low, and also whether that metric has declined, maintained or improved within the past year.

    For instance, the orange ratings for math and English language arts test scores reflect the fact that after huge dips from pre-pandemic scores, there was little change from the previous year’s scores. Math scores edged up 2.6 points and English scores dipped 1.4 points. 

    The state’s chronic absentee rate in 2022-23 was 24.3%. That means nearly a quarter of students missed 10 or more days of school that year. That is a 5.7 point dip from the previous year’s all-time high of 30%. However, it is still a historically poor rate, roughly double the 2018-19 rate of 12.1%. Chronic absentee rates were above 20%, the worst category, in 62% of districts.

    Data shows that chronic absenteeism surged nationwide in the wake of the pandemic, and it hit nearly every school district. Experts have said that sick days from Covid and quarantining can account for part but not all of the rapidly increasing absentee rates. The CDE trumpeted the state’s declining chronic absenteeism rate.

    “This is encouraging news, and our work is not complete,” said Superintendent Tony Thurmond, in a statement. “We have made an unprecedented investment in services that address the needs of the whole child. We can see that those efforts are paying off, but this is only the beginning.”

    But some questioned whether the dashboard’s metrics provide a meaningful portrait of progress in the state.

    The dashboard was created before the pandemic when there were a different set of assumptions about what progress would look like in schools, said Heather Hough, executive director of PACE, a Stanford-based education research organization. Metrics didn’t tend to surge or nosedive year to year before the pandemic. Improvement on metrics like chronic absenteeism or standardized test scores are worth noting, she said, but the dashboard’s focus on one year of change can be misleading.

    “That can mask the concern that we should still be having: A lot of students are far behind where they have been, and large portions of students are not attending school,” Hough said.

    The color coding system has implications for which schools are eligible for additional assistance. Skyrocketing chronic absenteeism rates were largely responsible for a surge in schools that were eligible for differentiated assistance. In 2019, 333 school districts were eligible but by 2022 that number shot up to 617. This year 466 school districts were eligible.

    Advocates for English learners also worry that the way that the dashboard presents metrics is downplaying an urgent issue in education.

    The dashboard shows that about half (48.7%) of English learners in the state advanced at least one level or remained at the top level of English language proficiency, based on their scores on the ELPAC, a test English learners are required to take every year until they reach proficiency. This is about the same number who progressed as last year.

    CDE considers this to be a yellow score — a medium number of students making progress toward English proficiency, and not much change in how many did so. In order to reach green, the number of students making progress toward English proficiency would have to increase by 2 percentage points.

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said fewer than 50% of English learners making progress each year should be considered very low, or red, rather than medium, or yellow.

    “That seems to be a passing score, so to speak, and really doesn’t create the sense of urgency to really focus on the needs of English learners,” Hernandez said. “We really think the state has low expectations for districts having students make progress.”

    Hernandez said if students advance one level each year, they would achieve proficiency in six years, which is a reasonable expectation based on research. When students take longer than six years to achieve proficiency, they are considered long-term English learners and can struggle in middle and high school.

    Californians Together has advocated for the state to change indicators for English learner progress. The group believes that districts or schools should receive a high, or green, level of progress if at least 70% of English learners progress at least one level in one year. Currently, the state considers 55% of English learners progressing at least one level to be high.

    About a third of English learners (32.7%) in the state remained at one of the same lower levels of English proficiency as the year before on the test. Almost one fifth (18.6%) decreased one level in English proficiency.

    Districts achieved varied scores on English learner progress – 66 were red, 215 orange, 152 yellow, 192 green, and 43 blue.

    In addition, Californians Together criticized the fact that the dashboard rates English learners’ scores on English language arts and math tests together with the scores of students who have achieved proficiency in English in the last four years.

    “It’s a very, very weak picture of the needs of English learners,” said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, strategic advisor for Californians Together.

    Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research at Ed Trust-West, said that the nonprofit that advocates for justice in education, is planning to dig into the data to get insight into what is happening for the state’s most marginalized students, but the initial data is concerning.

    “This data shows that the status quo for students of color is unacceptable, and we’re making alarmingly slow progress — but it also points to schools and districts that are proving that we can do better,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.





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  • Arizona: Cost of Universal Vouchers Reaches $872 Million per Year

    Arizona: Cost of Universal Vouchers Reaches $872 Million per Year


    The Grand Canyon Institute has been tracking the growth and cost of vouchers and charter schools in Arizona for several years. The vast majority of students who take vouchers (almost 3/4). But this year, a larger share were drawn from district schools and charter schools.

    The report contains a number of excellent graphics. Open the lin to see them.

    This is the Grand Canyon Institute release:

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    Cost of Universal ESA Vouchers

    Contact: Dave Wells, Research Director, dwells@azgci.org or 602.595.1025 ex. 2.

    Summary of Findings

    • 73% of Universal ESA voucher enrollees have never attended district or charter schools (including adjustments for students entering Kindergarten).
    • In FY2025, however, net new Universal ESA voucher enrollees primarily came from charter and district schools.
    • While the total cost of the overall ESA program in FY2025 is expected to be $872 million, the net cost after adjusting for where students would have otherwise attended is $350 million for those in the universal ESA voucher program. This represents a slight increase from the $332 million estimated by the Grand Canyon Institute last year.

    The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) estimates a $350 million net cost to the state’s General Fund in FY2025 (July 2024-June 2025) for the universal component of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) voucher program based on a student’s school of origin. This represents a slight increase over the estimated FY2024 cost of $332 million. The estimate assumes basic student funding weights. 

    The Joint Legislative  Budget Committee currently estimates the total annual cost of the ESA program to be $872 million, which includes the original targeted program and the universal component. Because student-level data on the universal program is not separated out by the Arizona Dept. of Education, GCI must estimate the origin of universal program enrollees. GCI’s estimate reflects the net cost the state would have incurred if the universal ESA voucher program did not exist. Almost every single child in the original targeted program had to attend a district or charter school for at least 45 days before enrolling in the program. GCI uses historical data on where the targeted students had come from previously, dating back to FY2017, along with current data on where all ESA students have left district or charter schools to estimate the distribution of students across district and charter schools for the original targeted program and the remainder are allocated to the universal program. 

    In FY2025, the net growth in the universal ESA vouchers was 7,660 of the total enrollment of 61,688. GCI estimates that 73% of ESA universal voucher recipients never attended a district or charter school, slightly lower than the rate of 80% in FY2025. This includes estimates for kindergarten students using ESA universal vouchers. 

    The primary driver of the change in FY2025 was a significant increase in the portion of net new enrollees from district and charter schools. GCI examined the marginal changes since last year and estimates that nearly half the net gain in universal participants of 7,660 from FY2024Q2 to FY2025Q2 came via Kindergarten. Analyzing changes in the portion of students previously attending a district or charter school, GCI estimates that less than 10% never attended (or would have never attended for Kindergarten) while half came from charter schools and just over 40% came from districts.

    This change helped lessen the growth of the net cost of the program. GCI presumes that Kindergarten students do not have a record of prior attendance but would mirror the same distribution.  Given that charter school enrollment is about one-fourth of district enrollment, charter schools have been significantly disproportionately impacted by the Universal ESA program.

    Despite the change in FY2025, the majority of participants in the universal ESA program never attended a district or charter school should be self-evident. For FY2025, the Quarter 3 Executive and Legislative ESA report identifies that of the total 87,602 students enrolled in the ESA voucher program (targeted and universal), regardless of when they first enrolled, only 33,942 students  moved from charter or district schools to an ESA. Virtually all targeted participants must first enroll in a district or charter school first. The universal program does not require prior attendance. 

    Access the full report here.

    The Grand Canyon Institute, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, is a centrist think tank led by a bipartisan group of former state lawmakers, economists, community leaders and academicians. The Grand Canyon Institute serves as an independent voice reflecting a pragmatic approach to addressing economic, fiscal, budgetary and taxation issues confronting Arizona.



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

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


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

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo/EdSource

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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  • Trump Will Cut More Federal Workers Next Year

    Trump Will Cut More Federal Workers Next Year


    Since his second inauguration, Trump has fired tens of thousands of federal workers, based on snap recommendations by Elon Musk’s team of whippersnappers. They have gone into government departments and agencies and decided in a day or so which workers to fire and which contracts to terminate. They don’t have enough information or time to make considered judgments, so they treat every federal worker as dispensable. The numbers fired are hard to determine, because federal judges have repeatedly reversed their actions. Some have been approved by the courts. The outcome is still in flux, though we do know that little is left of USAID or the U.S. Departnent of Education.

    Government Executive reports that Trump plans a new round of layoffs in his second year. It’s unclear what his end goal is: is he destroying the federal government for some reason? With all the laid-off workers, he hasn’t reduced the budget. It’s grown, due to greater expenses for ICE, border security, and defense.

    Some agencies, like FEMA and the National Weather Service, are being stripped to the bone. What will remain of our government at the end of his term?

    Government Executive reports:

    The Trump administration is looking to slash a net of 107,000 employees at non-defense agencies next fiscal year, which would lead to an overall reduction of more than 7% of those workers. 

    Agencies laid out their workforce reductions in an expanded version of President Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget released on Friday, which includes both ideas they can implement unilaterally and proposals that will require congressional approval. If agencies follow through on their plans, the cuts will likely be even steeper, as the Defense Department and some other agencies did not include their announced cuts in the new budget documents. 

    The cuts represent changes projected to take effect next year relative to fiscal 2025 staffing levels. The ongoing cuts that have already occurred were generally not factored into the current workforce counts and the White House noted those figures “may not reflect all of the management and administrative actions underway or planned in federal agencies.” 

    Agencies are currently operating under a directive from Trump to slash their rolls, though those plans are largely paused under court order and awaiting resolution at the Supreme Court. 

    Under the budget forecasts, the Education Department will shed the most employees, followed by the Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and NASA. Education has already moved to lay off one-third of its workforce, but those reductions in force are currently paused by a separate court order. 

    The departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture are also expecting to cut more than 20% of their workforces. 

    The Trump administration will seek to eliminate more than 107,000 jobs across government, but the net impact is mitigated by targeted hiring at certain agencies and offices. The Transportation Department is the only agency to project an overall staffing increase, driven by hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration and for IT. The Homeland Security Department will seek to significantly staff up at Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the administration ramps up its border crackdown and deportation operations, though DHS will see an overall cut due to planned reductions at the Federal Emergency Management Agency—which is set to shed 13% of its workforce—and the Transportation Security Administration—which will cut around 6%. 

    Many offices will be cut nearly entirely, such as the research and state forestry offices within USDA’s Forest Service. The department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service would shed nearly 4,000 employees, including two-thirds of employees providing technical assistance on conservation planning and forecasting on snowpack and water supply.  

    HHS, which has already laid off 10,000 employees, would eliminate 10 offices entirely, though some of the impacted employees are being absorbed into the new Administration for Health America or other reorganized areas. NASA is planning to shutter its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Engagement office and would cut its Science office in half. DHS would eliminate its Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction office. Cuts at the Treasury Department would be driven by reductions at the Internal Revenue Service— which would zero out its Business Systems Modernization office—though the Bureau of Fiscal Service is also planning to slash one-quarter of its staff.

    At the Interior Department, the National Park Service is planning to cut about 27% of its employees, Fish and Wildlife Service would cut 19% and U.S. Geological Survey would cut 32%.  

    The full scope of the cuts across government will likely expand over time: The Veterans Affairs Department is set to shed more than 80,000 employees and layoffs—assuming a court injunction is lifted—are expected as soon as this month, though they are not a part of the budget. The Defense Department has said it will cut around 60,000 civilian employees, but it has yet to detail those plans in Trump’s budget. 



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  • Anxious California teachers with pink slips await word on jobs next school year

    Anxious California teachers with pink slips await word on jobs next school year


    San Diego Unified teachers attend a school board meeting to protest pink slips last school year.

    San Diego Unified teachers protest pink slips before a school board meeting last year. The district plans to issue 30 preliminary layoff notices this year.

    Courtesy of San Diego Education Association

    Second-grade teacher Jacob Willis has worked in the San Diego Unified School District in different roles since he graduated from high school in 2016. Now, he is one of hundreds of California teachers waiting to see if they will still have a job when campuses reopen next school year.

    Declining enrollment, expiring federal funds for Covid relief, plus a proposed state budget with no new money for education made school leaders in 100 of California’s 1,000 school districts nervous enough about balancing their districts’ budgets to issue layoff notices to 1,900 teachers — 16 times more than the 124 that were issued last spring, according to the California Teachers Association. 

    State law requires that districts send pink slips by March 15 to any teacher who could potentially be laid off by the end of the school year. Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers —  the practice is criticized by many for being demoralizing to teachers and disruptive to school systems.

    “It creates serious insecurity and stress for teachers, including those who are ultimately asked to stay,” said Ken Jacobs, co-chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “This will make it harder for districts to hire teachers and leads teachers to leave the profession.”

    Holding out hope

    Willis, 26, knows that with the state’s enduring teacher shortage he could find a teaching job at another school district, but he’d rather not. His heart is at San Diego Unified, where he started as a noon duty assistant at age 18. He watched over students during recess and lunch for four years while completing his teaching credential.

    “I have no intention to stop teaching,” said Willis, who is in his second year as a teacher. “This is what I went to school for. This is what I intended to do for my whole career arc and life.”

    The month since the pink slips were issued has been a tough one for Willis and his class at Porter Elementary, who learned of his potential layoff when he appeared on the local news. They are upset that he might not be on campus when they return for third grade, he said.

    “There’s so much uncertainty,” Willis said. “There’s a chance that my pink slip might be rescinded. There’s a chance that it might not be rescinded, or I have to go to a different site. … It’s really stressful because I don’t know at all what’s going to happen.”

    Almost a quarter of the pink slips issued in California were from Anaheim Union High School District, which issued 226, and San Diego Unified School District, which initially sent out 208 layoff notices. As of Friday, Anaheim had rescinded at least 55 notices and San Diego Unified 30, according to district officials.

    San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district, employs 4,290 teachers, while Anaheim Union High School District has about 1,346 teachers, according to 2022-23 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

    “We haven’t seen layoffs on this scale in San Diego since 2017,” said Kyle Weinberg, president of the San Diego Education Association, referring to the notices of possible layoffs.

    Pink slips don’t necessarily mean job loss

    Districts generally send out more notices than the number of positions they might need to eliminate to ensure they meet the state requirement. Some pink slips are rescinded after district officials review credentials, expected retirements and projected enrollment numbers at school sites, and hearings with an administrative law judge are held to determine who stays and who goes.

    In San Diego, all the teachers still holding pink slips by the end of last week were probationary employees, said Mike Murad, spokesperson for the district. When the dust settles, Anaheim Union High School District expects to lay off 119 teachers by the end of the school year, while San Diego has said the number will likely be 127.

    Teachers are generally considered probationary if they have been with the district two years or less, are working in the district on an emergency-style credential or are hired into a position with restricted funding.

    The president of the state’s largest teachers union blamed the pink slips on reduced funding and officials who issue more layoff notices than necessary. “Unfortunately, a lot of districts go to it as if it’s like a playbook,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association.

    School districts should look to their reserves to fund these positions next school year, he said. 

    Teacher layoffs are complicated

    Generally, teacher layoffs are based on seniority, although districts can skip more junior teachers if they have special training and experience to teach a specific course that a more senior teacher does not. Pink-slipped teachers, who can prove they have more seniority than another teacher with equal expertise, can also bump that teacher and take that position, resulting in a reshuffling of teachers in multiple schools. 

    In Anaheim, the district protected 16 categories of teachers from layoffs, leading to layoff notices for more senior staff that included a teacher with 25 years of experience, said Geoff Morganstern, president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association. The teacher has since had the pink slip rescinded, but others with 10 to 16 years of service have still not had layoff notices revoked, he said.

    San Diego Unified also is not issuing layoff notices to teachers in some difficult-to-fill positions, and expects to have job openings in some credential areas, including special education, math and science, according to district officials.

    Revenue dips prompt layoffs

    Potential staff reductions at San Diego Unified are the result of the loss of nearly $540 million in Covid-relief funds, declining enrollment and projections of decreased state revenue, said board President Shana Hazan. 

    “As a district, we are committed to balancing our budget without significant impacts to students and school sites,” Hazen said. “Over the last year, our team has worked to thoughtfully and strategically build a budget that considers the needs of our children first and foremost.”

    The district is trying to maximize attrition to minimize layoffs, she said. “We are hopeful we can continue to reduce the actual number of employees affected before May 15, when reductions are to be finalized.” 

    The San Diego Education Association has asked district officials to tap reserves to pay teacher salaries and to eliminate positions as teachers retire or leave the district, Weinberg said. 

    Anaheim Union High School Superintendent Michael Matsuda blamed the layoffs in the district on budget deficits brought on, in part, by the loss of 3,500 students. The district had used one-time state funds to extend a three-year agreement, made during the 2017-18 school year, to temporarily increase teaching staff to address critical needs in core content areas, he said in a video statement to the school community. The funds are running out, according to the district.

    Union officials would have liked to have seen the district offer a retirement incentive this year and to manage declining enrollment through attrition and smaller cuts, but district officials didn’t want to spend the money, Morganstern said. The district has many teachers ready to retire, he added.

    Layoffs can hurt teacher recruitment

    Teacher layoffs during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009, are widely considered to be one of the causes of the current teacher shortage because they discouraged people from entering teacher preparation programs.

    “It’s a huge risk that the district is taking (by) not rescinding the layoff notices,” Weinberg said. “We are the only large district and the county that’s doing layoff notices, and there are plenty of vacancies in other districts that our educators will apply for, and they will accept jobs. And that’s going to be devastating for our students who have relationships with those educators.”

    A Commission on Teacher Credentialing report released last week shows that enrollment at teacher preparation programs declined another 10% in 2022-23, the most recent year data is available, following a 16% decline the previous year.

    Issuing layoff notices during a teacher shortage can be particularly tricky for districts that are still trying to find teachers for hard-to-fill positions, like those with special education, math and science credentials. 

    Local teachers unions have been holding rallies to gain community support and to put pressure on district officials to rescind the pink slips. 

    “If we are able to win and have all of the layoff notices rescinded, we will have the smaller class sizes that our students need and that we’ve seen with the additional funds during the pandemic,” Weinberg said.

    Morganstern expects all classes in Anaheim Union High School District to reach their maximum allowed capacity of students if the pink slips aren’t all recalled, with some classes going over the limit. The union will file grievances in those cases because it’s a contract violation, he said.

    “Then they’re going to have to scramble to hire teachers, and then they’re going to have to issue massive schedule changes because every kid’s schedule has to be rearranged because of these couple teachers at each school,” Morganstern said. “It’s going to be a disaster.”





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  • Map: Most California districts identified more homeless students this year

    Map: Most California districts identified more homeless students this year


    The number of homeless students statewide increased by 9.3%, according to recently released state enrollment data. Out of 761 districts, 433 — or 57% — reported an increase in their number of homeless students. This map shows the change in the homeless student population by district from 2023–24 to 2024–25. Click on a district to see the percent change and the number of homeless students enrolled.

    Note: A particularly sharp increase from one year to the next may be due to improved tracking or reporting practices. Please contact the district for further details.

    Data source: California Department of Education and EdSource Data Analysis





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  • School year already underway at some California districts as start dates keep creeping earlier

    School year already underway at some California districts as start dates keep creeping earlier


    Parents line up to take photos of their children on the first day of school Tuesday at George Washington Elementary School in Lodi.

    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    Children wearing colorful new backpacks, parents in tow, hugged and high-fived Principal Gina Lopez and other school staff as they streamed under an arch of multicolored balloons, accompanied by pulsating music, on the first day of school at George Washington Elementary School in Lodi on Tuesday. 

    Lodi Unified in San Joaquin County was among the first California school districts to return to school this year, beginning just after Sweetwater Union High School District in San Diego, which reopened on July 24. Some districts, many with year-round schedules, started even earlier.

    California school districts have moved away from the September return to school that was common in California and other states until the 1990s. School districts sometimes made the change to allow students to complete their semester studies and take their final exams before the winter break. It also gives students more time to prepare for state standardized tests.

    Sweetwater Union decided to complete its first semester by December to maximize instruction days before Advanced Placement testing, according to a statement from the district.

    “Key educational benefits to an earlier start date include reducing summer learning loss, alleviating overcrowding in schools, and aligning the calendar with four feeder districts — Chula Vista Elementary, San Ysidro, National School District, and South Bay — allowing families to coordinate vacations and child care more effectively,” according to the district statement.

    An EdSource survey of California’s 30 largest school districts this year found that all are returning to school before the Labor Day holiday in September and 21 of those are returning by Aug. 15. In 2014, seven of the 30 largest school districts were still starting school after Labor Day, according to an EdSource survey that year. 

    Some districts that instituted earlier start dates have opted to end the school year earlier, but others have shortened the summer break and added days off during the school year.

    California isn’t the only state returning to school early. About 70% of U.S. students had returned to school by Aug. 25 last school year, according to the Pew Research Center. 

    Summer shortened decades ago

    The students at George Washington Elementary and other Lodi Unified schools are used to returning to school in late July or early August — the district has been doing it for about two decades. Sweetwater Union High School District has been returning to school in late July for more than a decade.

    Lodi Unified moved its schools to a year-round schedule in the late 1980s because of overcrowding. It changed course in the early 1990s, after high schools struggled with the schedule, and began to move schools to a modified traditional schedule as they built more schools, said Superintendent Neil Young. Today, all of its schools are on a schedule that divides the year into quarters with a two-week break after each one. 

    Most parents and teachers have been in favor of the calendar and there has been no interest in changing it, Young said. 

    “I know for our teachers to be able to do a reset at the end of each quarter and begin the new quarter refreshed has been a positive,” he said. “And I have heard teachers say they appreciate that.”

    George Washington Elementary teachers Jenny Hampton and Natalie Smalley agree. They both prefer the regular breaks to a longer summer.

    “Those two weeks every nine to 10 weeks, like the kids are ready for a break, we’re ready for a break and so we just, we like that better,” Hampton said.

    Students excited for new year

    Sisters Karina Barron and Maria Barron remember starting school in July when they were students in Lodi Unified schools. On Tuesday they were dropping their children off at school. Their families like the school calendar, they said.

    “They kept asking when school started,” said Karina Barron of the children.

    The kindergarten through sixth-grade students streaming through the doors of George Washington Elementary seemed excited to be back in school. 

    “It’s better to be learning, so in the future I can have more life skills,” said Emmanuel, a sixth-grade student. His favorite subject is math.

    It’s all new to kindergartners

    Kindergartners in Kristen McDaniel’s class have no recollection of a time when school started in September. On Tuesday they each sat on a square on a rug in the middle of the classroom, much like decades of students before them. On a stool in the corner, one little girl wept, reluctant to join the group.

    McDaniel, who has taught kindergarten in the same classroom at George Washington Elementary for 25 years, knows the first day can be tough for her students. Everything takes longer on the first day of school, she said.

    The first day of school can be difficult for kindergartners not accustomed to being away from their parents. Shortly after this picture was taken, this little girl calmed down and had a great day, reported her teacher at George Washington Elementary in Lodi.
    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    “They don’t know where their cubbies are,” McDaniel said. “They don’t know how to walk in, where to go. So, it took a little bit of extra time today in order to get them to the carpet to circle time.”

    The first day can also be tough for teachers. McDaniel repeatedly told one boy to sit and not to lie on the rug, and twice had to gently remove the hand of a girl who grabbed at the book she was reading to the class.

    “This first day is so hard, and if it stayed this way, no one would ever, ever do it,” McDaniel said. “You couldn’t pay me enough to do this every single day. But the growth that you get at kindergarten versus other grade levels, it’s just incredible. And that’s why I do it, because I remind myself of this day and how they didn’t even know how to sit or just wanted to lay down on the carpet instead.”

    By the end of kindergarten, the students will be reading, adding and subtracting and focusing on literature, she said.

    McDaniel started the day by reading “Your Teacher’s Pet Creature,” which reinforces positive classroom behavior and introduces students to the stuffed class pet. During circle time, each child passed the class pet to the child sitting beside them, after reciting their name and receiving a welcome from the class in return.

    “The point of that first circle time is to build community, to get them to feel like they’re a part of the class and to learn about each other,” McDaniel said.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Yl6qWrfzE

    Kristen McDaniel, who has taught kindergarten in the same classroom for 25 years, started the first day at George Washington Elementary in Lodi Unified with an opening circle to help the student acclimate to being in school, and to develop a sense of community in the classroom. Each child passed around the class pet, a stuffed creature, after reciting their name and receiving a welcome in return.

    With introductions made and cubbies squared away, McDaniel dived into instruction, holding up a flash card with an apple to introduce the letter A. Shortly after, the little girl in the corner wiped away her tears and joined the group.

    “She actually had a great rest of the day, reported McDaniel. 

    The kindergartner wasn’t the only one overcome emotionally at the start of school. Principal Lopez said she became emotional when she visited classrooms the day before school, especially when she saw that the old mismatched desks and chairs had been replaced with new furniture.

    “This is like my 24th year, but you know, every beginning is always special,” said Lopez. “Right? Because this is my heart.”

    EdSource reporters Mallika Sheshadri, Lasherica Thornton, Emma Gallegos, Zaidee Stavely and Betty  Márquez Rosales contributed to this report.





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

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


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

    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Enrollment drops lead to cuts

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Take Sonoma State as another example. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The search for savings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ‘A painful year’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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