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California State University is only partially meeting its bold plan to graduate 40% of its students who started as freshmen by the end of four years. In newly released data this week, the system saw its four-year graduation rate inch to an all-time high of 36.2% this year —  more than double the graduation rate it posted in 2013.

The system has one year left to make good on its Graduation Initiative 2025 goals, which it debuted in 2015. The splashy effort was buttressed by a combination of system and state funding increases that over time reached $400 million annually. That money has gone toward hiring more professors, opening more classes in courses with high waitlists that students need to graduate,  cutting the number of students finishing classes with Ds and Fs and reaching out to students who dropped out.

The growth in graduation rates overlapped with a 31% spike in freshmen enrollment between 2009 and 2019, meaning the system’s graduation rate increased even as it was absorbing an additional 15,000 students.

The type of students Cal State enrolled changed as well, explained Jennifer Baszile, an associate vice chancellor for the system, at the board of trustees meeting Wednesday. In that same period, the university saw a 50% jump in freshmen who were the first in their families to attend college, come from low-income households or identify as Black, Latino or Native American — all groups that campuses have historically struggled to graduate at rates similar to other students.

“We are opening up opportunities for students who traditionally have not had them,” said Diego Arambula, vice chair of the board of trustees, at Wednesday’s meeting.

Among transfer students, the system is even closer to its 2025 goals, having graduated 44% of students within two years who came from community colleges — just shy of the 45% target it set for itself. Graduation rates are calculated separately for students who start as freshmen and those who transfer. Lately, about 40% of Cal State’s new students are transferring from other schools.

Gaps remain between racial and ethnic groups

But for the system’s other core goals to eliminate the differences in graduation rates between Black, Latino, Native American and all other students, the gaps remain recalcitrant.

The six-year graduation rate for Latino students, the system’s largest racial or demographic group, dipped from a high of 58% in 2021 to 56% in 2024 — well short of the 2025 goal to have 70% of all students who started as freshmen graduate within six years but higher than the 52% in 2015.

White and Asian students as distinct groups reached or surpassed the 70% goal by 2020.

While the traditional timeline for earning a bachelor’s degree is four years, the six-year graduation rate is a common metric that reflects the modern realities for many students: They work to afford their education and care for families, activities that require them to enroll in a reduced number of courses, which means they take longer to graduate.

For Black students, the graduation rate remains stubbornly low — at no point has Cal State graduated more than 50% of Black students at the end of six years who started as freshmen. By this year, the rate stood at 49 percent — a full 21 percentage points below the 70% goal.

Cal State is the nation’s largest public four-year university system and is home to more than 400,000 undergraduates.

Another immovable gap is the one between students receiving federal Pell grants because they come from low-income families and those who don’t. At Cal State, nearly half of students receive this benefit and they graduate at rates 10 to 12 percentage points below those of students from families with higher incomes. The gulf between students with and without Pell grants is supposed to close completely by next year under the goals Cal State set forth.

“Closing equity gaps is really, really hard,” said Christopher J. Steinhauser, a trustee who was superintendent of the Long Beach public k-12 school system, among the state’s largest. “Sometimes when you have initiatives and people do better, the gaps actually grow, and we actually have seen that here in our own system.”

Covid’s impact

One force constraining graduation rates is the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on students remaining in school. A key early measure of whether students will graduate is how many return after their first and second years of school. At Cal State, that so-called retention figure gradually grew until the pandemic struck. Among students who started as freshmen in 2019, about 85% returned after their first year. But for those who started in 2020, the year Covid devastated the world’s public health systems and plunged many families into financial distress, the share of returning students dropped to 83% and the next year to 81%.

Once students leave, it’s difficult to persuade them to return, higher-education experts say.

Still, Cal State has a higher overall graduation rate than most other similar universities in other states. The University of California, which rejects far more applicants than Cal State, graduates about 72% of its freshmen within four years — double that of Cal State.

California’s public school students are continuing to rebound from the pandemic, with more showing up for class, more graduating and fewer misbehaving at school, according to new data released today.

The California School Dashboard, a color-coded snapshot of how students and schools are faring, showed improvements in many categories during the 2023-24 school year — a relief for schools trying to help students recover academically and social-emotionally after the 2020 campus closures.

The most notable improvement was in attendance. The percentage of students who were chronically absent, missing more than 10% of school days in a year, dropped to about 20%, a significant decline from when it peaked at 30% three years ago. Prior to the pandemic about 12% of students were chronically absent.

“This is good news,” said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that advocates for school attendance. “I’m pleasantly surprised. … To benefit from all the services that schools are offering, kids have to show up.”

Since the pandemic, schools across the state have been doubling down on efforts to lure students back to school. Many used their federal and state COVID-19 relief money to hire outreach workers, add bus routes, host pizza parties and otherwise make it easier and more enticing to come to school. Some districts had social workers connect directly with parents to solve transportation and other obstacles.

Those efforts paid off, Chang said. While the pizza parties helped, she pointed to many schools’ focus on improving campus climate overall. That includes counseling, social-emotional learning, stronger relationships between school staff and families, and health and wellness services.

Pandemic relief grants expired this year, so some districts will be scrambling to maintain these programs going forward. But the state’s recent investments in community schools, arts education, transitional kindergarten and other services will help, Chang said.

Recognition for long-term English learners 

Another noteworthy item in the Dashboard is the inclusion of a new student group: long-term English learners, or students who were not fluent in English after seven years. The reasons for these students’ delays vary, but in general they’re not receiving adequate help learning English and as a result, lag far behind their peers academically.

About 10% of students who were ever classified as English learners were considered long-term English learners last year, according to state data. Those students had some of the lowest math and English language arts scores of any of California’s 13 other student groups.

“We’re celebrating this significant milestone, that long-term English learners get the spotlight they deserve and they are no longer invisible,” said Martha Hernandez, director of Californians Together, which advocates for students who are English learners. “But now the work begins to ensure their needs are met.”

Schools and other education agencies need to work together to help families who are recent immigrants by finding translators, provide counseling to students, boost bilingual education and bring in tutors to help with English and academic skills, said Lindsay Tornatore, director of systems improvement and student success at California County Superintendents, which represents county office of education superintendents.

‘Not good enough’

Elsewhere on the dashboard, the graduation rate was 86.4%, up a bit from the previous year and higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 84.2%. But a related item on the dashboard raised alarm bells with researchers. The number of students meeting the requirements for admission to California’s public universities was up only slightly — an increase of just 3,700 students among a graduating class of 438,000.  Close to half of high school graduates are ineligible for the University of California or California State University.

“That’s just not good enough,” said Alix Gallagher, interim managing director at the nonpartisan think tank Policy Analysis for California Education. “It means the recovery has been anemic, and that’s a problem. We need a different approach, starting at the state level.”

She pointed to some districts’ policies of placing students on math tracks that don’t allow them to meet the college admission requirements by their senior year. While not all students should be expected to enroll in four-year colleges, they should at least have the option available, she said.

The Department of Education hailed a drop in the suspension rate, among all student groups. Student misbehavior had increased after schools re-opened, and schools struggled to maintain a positive atmosphere for staff and other students. The rate dropped from 3.6% to 3.3% last year.

No major changes to format

The dashboard itself has been under fire recently. The data is too hard for parents to navigate, and the color coding can be misleading, according to a report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University. 

For example, a school might earn an orange color, the second-from-lowest designation, for showing slight improvements, but its scores might actually be lower than schools that earned a red, the lowest ranking. The state said it would consider making some changes but hadn’t made any major alterations on this year’s version.

The dashboard was released a few weeks earlier than it was last year. By 2026 the dashboard’s release will coincide with the Smarter Balanced test score announcement in mid-October.   

CalMatters data reporter Erica Yee contributed to this reporting.

At California’s community colleges, conservative professors and students are making their voices heard — not just in the classroom but in court. Their lawsuits have already led community colleges to pay millions in settlements and legal fees. 

CalMatters identified at least seven cases filed since 2020 in which professors or students have sued their community college districts for issues related to free speech. Most of the cases are still ongoing and are located in California’s Central Valley, in counties where Republicans often outnumber Democrats. Although separate, many of these lawsuits include similar allegations: that programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion are restricting the right to free speech under the First Amendment. The University of California system is facing a similar case in Santa Cruz.

In a state with 73 community college districts and 116 community colleges, such lawsuits are rare. Still, president-elect Donald Trump has used similar cases as fodder for national policy, such as a 2019 executive order he signed regarding free speech on college campuses, which he justified by pointing to a few conservative and religious students who claimed colleges had restricted their rights. Throughout his campaign for this year’s election, Trump promised to continue that focus if re-elected. 

“The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left,” he said in a campaign video last year, later adding that he would protect free speech and remove “all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats” from college campuses.

Even when these lawsuits get dismissed, community colleges can still pay a price. In a Riverside County lawsuit, Moreno Valley College professor Eric Thompson claimed the community college violated his right to free speech when it fired him. The lawsuit alleges that his termination was a result of various student complaints, all stemming from opinions that Thompson had presented in class or over email with the wider college community. He argued, for example, that homosexuality is the result of social factors, not genetics, and that conversion therapy should be allowed. Thompson lost the case but public records show that the district still paid nearly $900,000 in legal costs to fight it.

For Daniel Ortner, an attorney who recently helped students and professors file three different lawsuits against community college districts, these cases are part of a broader trend of cracking down on controversial speech and forcing “conformity to a certain viewpoint,” especially on topics of race. Ortner works for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit organization that focuses on free speech issues. 

The community college system, the California State University system, and the UC Office of the President all have policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion on their campuses, though each system has taken a different approach. 

Ortner said the policies at the community college level are the strictest, and therefore, elicit more pushback from faculty. According to state regulations adopted in 2022, every community college district in the state must develop a policy to evaluate staff based on their ability to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. 

“Students must experience campus and classroom cultures that they feel they can belong to, where they can thrive and succeed” said Eloy Ortiz Oakley, then-chancellor of the community college system, during a 2022 presentation about the new regulations. Of the more than 2 million students who enrolled at one of the state’s community colleges last year, most are low-income, including some students who are former foster youth or formerly incarcerated. Most students identify as Black, Hispanic, or Asian. 

The California community college system has the “most diverse student population in the nation,” said Ortiz Oakley, later adding that neither the CSU nor the UC system had similar regulations in place. “We should be proud that we’re leading the way.”

Nationally, many college systems have taken the opposite approach. A total of 25 states have proposed or signed legislation curbing how colleges support diversity, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Lawsuits over pronouns, posters, and alleged censorship

Many of the California lawsuits follow the same general contours. 

According to the details of one case, David Richardson, a professor at Madera Community College, started using the pronouns “Do, Re, Mi” while attending a 2021 presentation about personal gender pronouns. When the facilitator later approached Richardson about his choice of pronouns — calling his actions “harmful to trans people” — Richardson doubled down, claiming that his choice of pronouns was part of his right to free expression. After the college disciplined him, Richardson sued the State Center Community College District, which oversees Madera Community College. The case is still pending in federal court.

Another lawsuit at Bakersfield College dates back to 2019, when two professors, Matthew Garrett and Erin Miller, put together a campus talk about “free speech” and “campus censorship.” During the talk, Garrett and Miller criticized the school for supporting Kern Sol News, a nonprofit news site, and criticized specific professors at the school’s Social Justice Institute. Bakersfield College administrators then wrote a note in their personnel files, criticizing Garrett and Miller for “unprofessional conduct,” effectively “chilling” their First Amendment rights, according to the lawsuit.

The Kern Community College District settled with Garrett this summer, paying him $2.4 million on the condition that he drop all of his legal complaints against the district. It’s less than 1% of the district’s annual budget, but for a faculty member, many of whom make around $100,000 a year, it’s a significant sum. Miller is continuing with the case. 

In the settlement, both Garrett and the district deny any wrongdoing. “The settlement is in the best interest of the District and allows us to focus on the future and continue to deliver quality higher education for students of Kern County without any further legal distractions,” said Norma Rojas, a spokesperson for the Kern Community College District, in a written statement. “To be clear, the dispute with Matthew Garrett was a disciplinary matter due to his disruptive actions on campus, none of which concerned freedom of speech.” 

Miller and Garrett declined multiple requests to comment.

Another Central Valley case stems from an incident in 2021. At the time, Juliette Colunga was a student at Clovis Community College and on the leadership team of her college’s chapter of the Young America’s Foundation, a national conservative organization with local branches at over 2,000 college campuses. She and two other students placed a set of posters across campus that criticized communism, which the college then removed after other students complained. Later, Colunga and her co-leaders asked to put up pro-life posters, but school leaders said they could only be placed in a different location, far from the spot where they usually placed their content. With help from Ortner and the Young America’s Foundation, she and the other student leaders sued, alleging that the school district’s actions violated their First Amendment Rights. 

This summer, the State Center Community College District, which oversees Clovis Community College, agreed to pay her, the other student leaders, her attorneys, and the Young America’s Foundation $330,000 as part of a legal settlement. The district also agreed to implement a new policy for displaying posters on campus and to provide “First Amendment training” to all of its managers.

“It was never about making money,” Colunga said. “It was not only about making change, but also about ensuring that change remains for future students.” 

Kristen Kuenzli Corey, general counsel to the State Center Community College District, declined to comment on Colunga’s lawsuit, Richardson’s lawsuit, and another similar lawsuit. She pointed to the pleadings in the cases as evidence of the district’s position. 

Do public employees, students have the right to free speech?

In general, the free speech provision of the First Amendment governs the relationship between people and government. Faculty and students at a public college have a right to free speech under the First Amendment, but in a slightly more limited manner, said David Snyder, the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition. Various courts have found that public institutions can limit the free speech rights of its employees — in this case, faculty — if an employee’s behavior runs counter to the mission of the institution. Schools also have a right to restrict their students’ speech, but only if it disrupts education. The most famous example is the “Tinker test,” where the U.S. Supreme Court said that students had a First Amendment right to free speech, as long as their conduct did not “materially and substantially interfere” with education. 

“What also matters is what the school’s policies say,” Snyder said. Regardless of the constitutional questions, a professor or student can sue if they feel the school’s actions contradict its policies. 

In addition to its policy on diversity, equity and inclusion, California’s community college system also has a policy on academic freedom, which states that faculty, staff, and students should have “the opportunity to express their opinions at the campus level.”

The regulations around diversity, equity and inclusion do not conflict with the academic freedom policy or otherwise “censor or compel speech,” said Paul Feist, a spokesperson for the community college system, and he pointed to a lawsuit filed by Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson as evidence. Johnson does not agree with the college’s principles of diversity, equity and inclusion and claims that being forced to adhere to them would infringe on his rights, according to the case. A judge recently dismissed Johnson’s claims, though he has appealed the ruling. Neither the district nor Johnson responded to requests for comment.

Of the seven lawsuits identified by CalMatters, most have taken years to resolve.

Colunga’s lawsuit settled this summer — almost three years after she and the other student leaders first put up the posters at Clovis Community College. By the time the case settled, she had already graduated and transferred to The Master’s University, a private, four-year Christian college near Los Angeles. 

She said the school doesn’t have an official chapter of Young America’s Foundation, but she’s trying to get one started.

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

Update, Thursday, Nov. 21: Cal State trustees unanimously approve merging Cal Maritime with Cal Poly.

In a bid to forestall its financial disintegration, Cal Maritime, California’s smallest public university, is merging with one of the state’s most selective and financially stable universities, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It’s a move that’ll conjoin a Bay Area campus that trains students for a life at sea to a school 250 miles away that’s known for agriculture and engineering.

California State University senior officials in the chancellor’s office painted a stark picture in its report to the board of trustees that collectively oversees the whole system. There “continues to be a dire, binary choice: integrate the two institutions or initiate immediate steps for the closure of the Maritime Academy,” board documents said.

The top executives at Cal Poly and Cal Maritime support the merger. The trustee committee signed off on the plan unanimously today. The merger requires a final vote tomorrow by the full board and is expected to easily pass.

As a consequence, the system of 23 universities will downsize to 22.

The state’s Lt. Gov, Eleni Kounalakis, a trustee member, said “this is, without question, the most exciting thing that has happened” in her six years of serving on the board. The consolidation is “going to elevate both of these campuses.”

Fueling Cal Maritime’s fiscal misfortune is a collapse in enrollment and the tuition dollars that flow from it: Since 2016-17, Cal Maritime shed 31% of its students, dropping from 1,107 to 761 last fall. Cal Poly’s enrollment in the same period has held steady at around 22,000 students.

The chancellor’s office estimates that to keep Cal Maritime operating at its present reduced size, it’ll need about $30 million annually — on top of its current $52.3 million annual budget. Expanding the campus’ enrollment as a standalone campus would add to the costs, as would the needed financial aid, said Steve Relyea, the system’s chief financial officer, at the September hearing.

In an interview today, Relyea explained that likely 80% of that $30 million would have gone toward salary and benefits for a Cal Maritime campus that cannot afford it. But that new money won’t be necessary with the merger. Because Cal Poly is large enough, its personnel can absorb much of the workload needed to sustain Cal Maritime after the merger. Relyea is also confident that Cal Poly’s infusion of cash and personnel can grow Cal Maritime’s enrollment. That will boost revenues for the combined university over time to afford any additional staff the merger requires, plus increased financial aid and student academic support.

The merger should also lead to more contracts and construction projects at Cal Maritime that have fallen through the cracks, Relyea added. Dealing with maintenance issues sooner prevents more costly repairs later.

To ease the transition to Cal Poly’s higher expenses, officials at Cal State chancellor’s office are saying the system needs to spend $5 million annually for the next seven years — and a majority of that will be for financial aid. Relyea said in September the system doesn’t expect the need for higher ongoing funding for the merged university after that seven-year period above what they spend now.

Cal State’s chancellor’s office hired a firm specializing in campus mergers, Baker Tilly, at a cost of nearly $2 million, Cal State’s spokesperson, Amy Bentley-Smith, wrote to CalMatters. The firm will work on this merger for the next 10 months.

If the merger goes through, the Cal Maritime campus will become a subsidiary of Cal Poly starting July 1, 2025. Cal Maritime’s land-based academic presence will be called Cal Poly, Solano Campus; its training vessel, the academics for the Merchant Marine license issued by the U.S. Coast Guard and related disciplines will be called Cal Poly Maritime Academy. Leaders of the two subsidiary campuses will report to the president of Cal Poly, Jeffrey Armstrong.

Starting fall 2026, all students of the merged institutions will be enrolled as Cal Poly students, actions that also require outside approval from education accreditors. 

Cal Maritime’s national implications

But it’s not saving money that’s the core driver of collapsing Cal Maritime into Cal Poly, Relyea said. Rather, it’s to preserve Cal State’s ability to offer degree programs that lead to Merchant Marine licenses issued by the U.S. Coast Guard, he and other system leaders said, including Cal Maritime’s interim president, Michael Dumont.

Merchant Marines are the officers who lead commercial ships for international trade during peacetime and move U.S. military supplies around the globe. “Without the civilian mariners who operate these ships, the United States’ ability to project military power would suffer and the nation’s national security interests would be compromised,” Cal State officials wrote in July.

Cal Maritime is one of seven maritime academies in the U.S., including the federally run United States Merchant Marine Academy. The other six state-based academies have a federal mandate to educate future Merchant Marines. Like Cal Maritime, all the state-based academies have seen enrollments plummet for their Merchant Marine programs. Cal Maritime is the only such academy on the west coast and attracts students not just from California but from other Western states as well.

At Cal Maritime, training includes summer apprenticeships and a semester out at sea on a large training vessel. The federal government is spending $360 million to provide Cal Maritime a new ship by 2026. Without more students, it “would be cost prohibitive” to operate those hands-on experiences, Relyea told trustees in September.

To save on costs, Cal Maritime froze hiring in March, leaving 17 vacancies unfilled and eliminating 14 positions. Dumont also eliminated 10 vice president and associate vice president positions based on his assessment that Cal Maritime “was overly administered given its enrollment decline and relatively small size,” he said in September. 

For Julia Lopez, a trustee on the board who co-led a working group on Cal State’s finances, this merger “will have bent the cost curve for the system, because Maritime will no longer cost us as much as we would if we kept it ongoing,” she said in September.

The combined campuses “will have grown, added enrollment, saved a precious and important and valuable campus, and done it with resources that we would have been spending anyway,” she said then.

Another trustee, Jack McGrory, said in September that this merger can be a model for Cal State’s future efforts to cut costs as the system battles ongoing budget gaps. Relyea, in an interview today, echoed that sentiment. A campus with dwindling enrollment can hire, for example, the human relations or contracts division of a more financially stable campus at a fee that’s less than what it would cost to hire or retain those workers. “Some of our campuses are just not going to have the resources to do it anymore,” Relyea said.

But the union representing faculty has faulted the system for providing scant details about the merger.

“The restructuring will undoubtedly impact faculty jobs, workload concerns, result in potential layoffs, curb professional development, and program quality,” a statement from union leadership said this week.

Lisa Kawamura, a professor at Cal Poly and chair of the faculty union chapter there, told CalMatters today that faculty still doesn’t know whether the merger will mean lectures at Cal Poly will lose their jobs to tenured professors at Cal Maritime. They also don’t know if professors will be expected to teach more students per class or if professors will be paid higher wages if they’re asked to teach year-round, one of the plans Cal Poly leadership is floating. Another strain on the faculty is that Cal Poly is transitioning away from a quarter system to a semester one for its academics by 2026, a conversion that’s rife with complexity in normal times but is accentuated by the merger.

Another trustee, Darlene Yee-Melichar, who’s the faculty representative on the board, sounded less critical today: “I’m very optimistic and supportive of the proposed integration,” she said.

Merger impact on student costs

Currently enrolled Cal Maritime students will not be charged more for Cal Poly’s  campus fees, which are considerably higher than those at any other campus in the system. That’s on top of systemwide mandatory tuition that all students must pay. 

Instead, Cal Poly will “offset and cover the difference in fees for all continuing Maritime students as they complete their degrees,” Armstrong said in September.

Cal Poly recently passed a fee structure that preserves 60% of new fee revenue for student financial aid and scholarships.

Still, Cal Poly enrolls the smallest share of low-income students of any public university in California, as measured by the federal Pell grant that’s limited to students from low-income households. That’s because the state’s main free tuition program covers systemwide tuition, but not campus fees. That plus the expensive rent in San Luis Obispo make Cal Poly less affordable for low-income students than other public universities in California, including the University of California.

Cal Poly’s total tuition and fees are $2,600 more than Cal Maritime’s this year — and about $4,000 more than the systemwide average, a CalMatters review of system data shows.

Cal Poly students earn $20,000 more on average within two years of graduating than the system’s average of $56,000. Cal Maritime students earn nearly $40,000 more than the system’s average.

Student and faculty reaction

Gary Saunders, an international strategy and security sophomore at Cal Maritime, says the merger will not change much for him. He believes his return on investment will remain high no matter the outcome of the merger. 

“You’re almost guaranteed a really high-paying job directly out of college,” Saunders said. “You’ll still be getting the same job offers, so I don’t think [the merger] changes much.”

Saunders says some of the students who are invested in the campus’ traditions may be more reluctant but believes his school could use a new direction. The campus has already made uniforms for non-cadets optional, and Saunders thinks this shift will make the campus more like Cal Poly.

He hopes to see more support toward organizations that create an inclusive campus if the merger provides the Cal Maritime campus more financial and institutional resources for cultural clubs. 

“I’m a Korean guy,” Saunders said. “I come from a super poor family. With more resources, I hope to promote diversity and make sure bad stuff from the past won’t happen again.”

Cal Maritime and Cal Poly have worked to increase diversity by partnering with local high schools and community colleges, according to a Cal State overview of the merger. The campuses will both have access to Cal Maritime’s Title IX team that investigates sexual harassment claims and Cal Poly’s Civil Rights and Compliance Office will develop a joint civil rights implementation plan. 

In San Luis Obispo, many students seem to be unaware of the possible change, says Cal Poly biomedical engineering senior Hannah Reyes. She believes students will not be very affected by the merger. 

 “It sounds like a big deal, but Cal Maritime only has about 800 students,” Reyes said.  

Trevor Knotts, an industrial engineering sophomore at Cal Poly, also believes the merger with Cal Maritime could offer Cal Poly students a unique educational experience with access to Maritime’s programs. 

“With regards to the College of Engineering, I think it’s exciting,” Knotts said. “I know Cal Maritime is a super small school and only has three engineering majors. They offer new aspects of the college experience and a good way to get these more niche career paths exposure.”

At the September trustees meeting, Armstrong said the two schools have similar academic focuses. “Most of the programs leading to a U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marine officer license are engineering related,” he said of Cal Maritime’s offerings.

Once the merger occurs, some advisory bodies from the two campuses will also merge into one body, like the Academic Senate, which represents the interests of professors on educational matters. Cal Poly’s Academic Senate Chair Jerusha Greenwood has been in conversation with Cal Maritime’s chair, Sarah Senk, about what the merger might look like. 

“A lot of it has actually been learning about each other, what each Senate looks like,” she said. “Because it will be one Cal Poly institution with two locations, how does our constitution for Academic Senate need to be updated?”

Mikhail Zinshteyn reports on higher education for CalMatters. Jeremy Garza is a fellow with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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Update: On Tuesday, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency appeal on the grounds that the plaintiffs failed to show they would suffer irreparable harm, upholding a Colorado judge’s ruling on Monday.

Despite broad protections for transgender student athletes, California has become the latest battleground in the growing national movement to remove them from women’s college sports.

In one case, two public universities in California are leaving the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics after it imposed a ban in April on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports. 

In a much more publicized case, four teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Mountain West Conference have forfeited games against San José State’s volleyball team this fall after one of its players identified a teammate as transgender and joined a lawsuit against the NCAA, opposing its policy allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports.

On Nov. 13, volleyball players from those universities filed a separate lawsuit against the conference, the conference commissioner, and California State University officials for the same reason. The plaintiffs requested an “emergency” motion to prevent the alleged transgender volleyball player from participating in the conference tournament that starts Nov. 27. On Monday, a Colorado judge rejected the suit, leaving the season forfeits to count as wins for San José State and allowing the team to play in the tournament with a full roster. Plaintiffs have filed for an emergency appeal, to be heard by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“California has robust non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students, specifically transgender students, at all levels,” said Tony Hoang, executive director for Equality California, a nonprofit civil rights organization.

California is one of 24 states in the country that allow transgender student athletes to play on sports teams that match their gender identity. California enshrines protections for transgender students in the state education code and in policies for all three public college and university systems. Transgender athletes are allowed to compete by the largest athletic associations operating in the state — the California Interscholastic Federation at the secondary level, and the California Community College Athletic Association and the NCAA at the collegiate level. California goes further, even, than the U.S. Department of Education, which has yet to enact proposed protections for transgender athletes in its Title IX anti-discrimination policy.

Despite all of this, transgender athletes in California are still susceptible to legal and social pressures playing out across the country. Twenty-six states ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports at any level. In some of those states, lawsuits against national athletics organizations are sweeping California into the battle. 

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will ban transgender students from competing in sports altogether. “We’re not going to let it happen,” he said on Oct. 15 at a town hall in Georgia when he was asked about transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Shiwali Patel, the National Women’s Law Center’s senior director of safe and inclusive schools, called bans on trans athletes “attempts to weaponize civil rights law to justify discrimination against an already vulnerable group of students.”

Since AB 1266 took effect in 2014, California students from K-12 to collegiate levels have had the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

The onus is on public colleges and universities, and not athletics associations, to adhere to California’s protections for transgender student athletes. However, the mounting pressure against athletics associations is affecting California college athletes nonetheless.

Lawsuit against NCAA gains momentum

So far this fall, the women’s volleyball teams at Boise State University in Idaho, Utah State University, University of Wyoming, and The University of Nevada, Reno, have forfeited conference matches against the San José State University Spartans. The forfeits came after Brooke Slusser, a San José State player, publicly claimed that one of her teammates is transgender. In statements to the press, Slusser has argued that the teammate poses a physical risk to other women players during practice and competitions. CalMatters is not naming the teammate to preserve her privacy. San Jose State has not confirmed whether the student is transgender.

At San José State, “there have been no reported injuries involving either our team or opponents,” said Michelle Smith McDonald, the university’s senior director of media relations. “We don’t anticipate any changes to our current roster between now and the end of the season.” 

In September, Slusser joined more than a dozen other female athletes in the Georgia-based lawsuit Gaines v. NCAA, filed in March. According to the suit, the plaintiffs allege that transgender athletes “disproportionately burden female athletes by reducing female competitive opportunities, forcing female athletes to compete against males in sex-separated sports, depriving women of equal opportunities to protect their bodily privacy, and authorizing males to access female safe spaces necessary for women to prepare for athletic competition, including showers, locker rooms and restrooms.”

On Nov. 13, Slusser and 11 other plaintiffs from colleges in the Mountain West Conference filed a lawsuit in Colorado claiming the NCAA, the conference, San José State and other universities “have engaged in a purposeful and illegal assault on the rights of women athletes” by allowing transgender athletes to compete. The suit sought an emergency injunction to prevent the alleged transgender athlete from competing and to take back the wins San José State accrued when the teams forfeited. The judge denied the motion, writing that “until the filing of this lawsuit, there was no dispute between the parties over the applicability or enforceability of” the Mountain West Conference’s policies allowing transgender women to participate. “The rush to litigate these complex issues now over a mandatory injunction places a heavy lift on the MWC at the eleventh hour.”

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in both lawsuits did not respond to interview requests.

Robin McElhatton, the assistant director of media relations for the university, wrote in an email that “all San José State University student-athletes are eligible to participate in their sports under NCAA and Mountain West Conference rules. We are gratified that the Court rejected an eleventh-hour attempt to change those rules.”

A similar statement from the California State University stated officials “applaud” the court’s decision.

San José State student athletes are governed under the NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and the college adheres to Cal State anti-discrimination policies. San José State will stay in the Mountain West Conference through the 2031-32 school year, according to Smith McDonald.

“The Mountain West Conference prioritizes the best interests of our student-athletes and takes great care to adhere to NCAA and [Mountain West] policies,” according to a statement provided by Javan Hedlund, senior associate commissioner of the conference. He did not comment on the Colorado lawsuit.

The National Women’s Law Center filed a motion to join Gaines v. NCAA as a defendant, but was denied by the court on Nov. 1. The center argued in its motion that “while Plaintiffs purport to speak on behalf of all women, they do not represent the interests of women who are transgender and want to continue participating in NCAA sports, nor the cisgender women who want to continue participating with them.” 

The National Women’s Law Center has advocated for gender equity in sports since its founding in 1972, the year Title IX was enacted. “We know that trans inclusive school policies around sports are essential to fulfill Title IX’s broad promise of protecting well-being and education opportunities for all women and girls,” Patel said.

If the plaintiffs prevail at the district court, Patel said the case will go to an appellate court. Because the Biden administration has not enacted a proposed Title IX policy for transgender athletes, uncertainty remains within the courts, Patel said. “But what we do know is that the circuit courts that have heard this issue, have come out in favor of trans student athletes,” she said.

Members of the NCAA Gender and Equity Task Force did not respond to CalMatters’ multiple requests for comments.

The potential impact of banning transgender athletes

For transgender student athletes, the significance of having access to team sports goes beyond fairness. States with anti-trans laws show worse mental health outcomes for transgender youth. Bonnie Sugiyama, the director of San José State’s PRIDE Center, said transgender students particularly stand to benefit from access to sports in school. 

“You get leadership skills, you get community, it’s great for your mental health to be able to play,” Sugiyama said. “To restrict people based on their identity … just because you don’t know where to put them? That’s not really an acceptable response.”

As a lifelong multi-sport athlete and former high school basketball coach, Sugiyama understands that athletics associations must create policies that cultivate a safe and fair playing field.

Sugiyama points out that blanket bans on transgender women don’t take into account whether an individual took hormone suppressants before adolescence, which has a major impact on how the body develops, nor do bans reflect how trans athletes compare to the range of physical traits of the average cisgender player of their sport. 

“We should be talking about opportunities for everybody,” Sugiyama said. “At the end of the day, people just want to be able to play sports.”

Transgender athlete bans impact all athletes, research has found. A Center for American Progress report using CDC data says that in states that banned trans students from playing with their peers, fewer girls overall are playing school sports. 

“On the other hand, where states include and support trans students, more girls are playing sports,” Patel said.

Federal anti-discrimination policies are unclear on transgender athletes

Transgender students were first written into Title IX in 2016 when the Obama administration specified that students could participate in sex-segregated activities and access bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinded those protections during Trump’s first presidency. On Aug. 1, the Biden administration enacted new protections for transgender students, reversing DeVos’ revision but not including protections for transgender athletes specifically. The Biden administration has not provided a reason for the omission. 

The renewed Title IX policies met backlash across the country even before they were enacted. At least eight lawsuits resulted in injunctions in 26 states blocking the revisions from taking effect.

“Instead of focusing on the true mission of Title IX, which is to protect women and girls from discrimination in education and to protect and promote women’s and girls’ sports, the Defendants attempt to rewrite it entirely [to] institutionalize the left-wing fad of transgender ideology in our K-12 system and tie school funding to it,” one lawsuit out of Kansas reads.

A national injunction resulting from the Kansas lawsuit included more than 300 California K-12 schools and at least 50 colleges and universities, but those schools are still obligated to follow California’s education code.

“Federal law is the law of the land. But states are allowed to pass laws that go above and beyond what federal law does, and California has done that,” said Jennifer Chou, a civil rights lawyer who is the American Civil Liberties Union Northern California’s head of gender, sexuality and reproductive justice.

Athletics associations fracturing on transgender athlete issue

Without clear Title IX protections for transgender athletes, athletics associations across the nation have established their own policies governing the participation of trans students in college sports. In April, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics banned transgender women from participating in their women’s leagues. The association has 237 member universities across the U.S., including nine private institutions in California and two public four-year universities. 

In September, Cal Maritime decided to separate from the association by June 2025. UC Merced also announced its intent to leave the association and join the NCAA starting in fall 2025. 

According to Cal Maritime’s chief of staff, Karyn Cornell, interim president Michael Dumont’s review of the education code drove the split from the association. In a letter to the campus, Dumont explained that the association’s ban on transgender students contravenes state law and California State University policies, and affirmed the university’s commitment to provide “an inclusive and equitable community that values diversity and fosters mutual respect.”

“They’re doing the right thing, and they’re standing up for people like me, which is good,” said former Cal Maritime student Sophie Scopazzi, who once pushed for gender-neutral uniforms at the university. In November 2021, Scopazzi filed a Title IX complaint when some Cal Maritime student leaders sent emails and tweets with hateful, anti-LGTBQ+ comments. Then-President Thomas Cropper called the language “offensive” but said it was protected free speech. Scopazzi appreciates Dumont’s actions now.  

“It’s nice to have a president that’s willing to say, ‘This is against our values. What they’re doing in [other states] is against what we stand for here at Cal Maritime,’” said Scopazzi, who graduated in 2023. 

While there are over a dozen collegiate athletic associations in the United States, the NCAA and the NAIA are the primary national associations for four-year universities. The NCAA has over 1,000 institution members nationally, with 60 in California.

The NCAA’s policy on transgender athletes, established in 2011, is currently “under review.” In April, the NCAA Board of Governors discussed transgender student athletes but did not propose changes to the policy, which was last updated in 2022. The current NCAA policy aligns with the International Olympic Committee’s guidelines for transgender athletes, which ensure that competition is “fair and safe and that athletes are not excluded solely on the basis of their transgender identity or sex variations.”

The committee leaves it to each sports’ governing body to determine its eligibility criteria for inclusion based on hormone levels. In the case of male to female transgender athletes who compete in women’s sports, these criteria typically require hormone level testing at different intervals preceding competitions.

Most community colleges in California also require certain testosterone levels for transgender women to compete in women’s sports. In California, 110 community colleges participate in the state-established California Community College Athletic Association. 

“Under 3C2A policy, transgender men and women may compete on men’s teams, but trans women may not compete on women’s teams unless they have completed at least one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment for gender transition,” according to Mike Robles, director of communications for the association. 

Civil rights advocates who spoke with CalMatters believe that attempts to enact anti-transgender policies will fail in California. Hoang of Equality California also believes the lawsuit against the NCAA will be thrown out.

“An overwhelming majority of courts have consistently upheld legal protections for transgender individuals, particularly in cases involving anti-discrimination laws, and we’re hopeful that this case won’t be going anywhere, and it is a publicity stunt,” he said.

For the record: The story has been updated to state that the National Women’s Law Center sought to join Gaines v. NCAA as a defendant, but was denied.

CalMatters is covering the impact of the national fight over transgender students in California college athletics. Do you have a story to share? Reach out to the College Journalism Network at cjn@calmatters.org. 

Amy Elisabeth Moore and Desmond Meagley are fellows with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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When the superintendent in San Francisco Unified proposed closing schools recently, parents launched a prolonged — and successful — protest. The uproar may have died down for now, but the issue is likely to erupt at school boards across the state — and some say that’s a good thing.

Declining enrollment, the end of pandemic relief grants and state budget uncertainty have combined to put hundreds of California school districts in precarious financial straits. Closing schools is never a popular option, but for some districts it may be the only way to avoid the state seizing control of operations. When the state takes over a district, the school board loses power and a state-appointed administrator makes cuts until the budget is balanced. A takeover could last a decade.

“This is the big thing that we’re going to be dealing with in California education over the next few years. The declines in enrollment that we have seen so far pale in comparison to the declines the state is projecting,” said Carrie Hahnel, a senior fellow at Policy Analysis for California Education. “In some areas, the declines will be severe. And I don’t see how we manage those kinds of reductions without closing schools.”

The number of students enrolled in California’s K-12 public schools has dropped by 461,000 students — or 7% — over the past two decades. Lower birth rates, declines in immigration and an outflow of families from California have all contributed. Enrollment is expected to drop even further over the next decade, according to the state Department of Finance, to just over 5 million students — a decline of nearly 20% since the peak in the early 2000s.

The declines have hit some regions harder than others. San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego have all experienced steep declines in enrollment, in part due to a high cost of living that’s led families to move to less expensive areas. In San Francisco, the lure of private schools has also made a significant dent in public school enrollment: Roughly 40% of the children in the city attend private school, compared to about 9% statewide.

Because California funds its schools based on attendance, fewer students equals less money. Pandemic relief grants — totalling more than $13.5 billion in California — offered a buffer for many school districts facing financial hardship, but those grants expire this year. Meanwhile, the state education budget may dip in the coming years due to a shaky economy. Gov. Gavin Newsom largely protected schools from budget cuts this year, but there’s no guarantee that will continue next year.

Closing under-enrolled, half-empty schools is an obvious way for school districts to save money. A bit of the savings comes from facilities costs, such as utility bills and maintenance, but the bulk comes from staff. By reassigning or laying off teachers, districts can consolidate programs and lower their payroll costs. Districts can also lease or sell the vacant schools to generate revenue.

But closing schools nearly always sparks impassioned protests from families, students, teachers and the community. Schools are often the heart of a neighborhood, and a closure — especially in a neighborhood that’s already struggling — can be a significant blow. A closed school often means that students must travel further to get to their new school, and adjust to new teachers and a new campus culture. The experience can be deeply disruptive to students as well as teachers and parents.

Impact on Black, low-income students

It’s often low-income and Black communities that are most affected by school closures, research shows. That’s partly because those neighborhoods have seen some of the greatest declines in enrollment, but some see it as part of a long history of disinvestment in Black students’ education. 

“If they invested in the schools they want to close, maybe the district wouldn’t have a problem with declining enrollment,” said Brandie Bowen-Bremond, policy director for Coleman Advocates, a nonprofit that promotes policies related to families of color in San Francisco. Tutoring, wellness centers, social workers and other services would make the under-enrolled schools more attractive to local families and they might be less likely to move away or enroll their children in charter schools, she said. 

Coleman Advocates helped fight proposed school closures in San Francisco Unified last month, a battle that resulted in the superintendent’s resignation and a promise from the new superintendent that the district wouldn’t close schools this year.

The California Teachers Association also opposes school closures in nearly all cases. Instead of closing schools, districts should look to lower class sizes, push for more education funding from the state, and look for creative solutions such as partnering with cities to open libraries, parks and community centers at under-used school campuses, the union said.

“Closing schools is the last thing we should be doing,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association. “Schools are a safety net in so many communities. These schools have a whole ecosystem, a whole history in a community. Disrupting that is a setback that is hard to undo.”

Tough choices in Oakland

But for districts that have already made steep cuts, and are facing grim enrollment projections, school closures may be inevitable. Between 2012 and 2022, California school districts closed nearly 700 schools, and more are almost certain to come. Oakland Unified went through a painful round of school closures three years ago, and the district is bracing for more as it looks to trim a $95 million budget deficit and avoid another state takeover. 

The district’s enrollment has dropped from 50,000 students in the early 2000s to just 34,000 last year. Meanwhile, the district maintains 77 schools, one of the lowest students-per-school ratios in the state. Fontana Unified, for example, has 46 schools for about the same number of students. Moreno Valley Unified, also with about the same enrollment, has 40 schools.

“I’m a firm believer that solvency is the foundation of quality,” Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said. “It’s pretty straightforward. If we fail to make some of the necessary and difficult cuts, we’ll head toward insolvency.”

She expects pushback from the community, but believes that students, teachers and families will be better off in the long run. Closures will free up more money for teacher raises, workforce housing at vacant school sites and improved academic and extracurricular offerings at existing schools. 

“To think that there’s some way we can do this where everyone’s going to be happy is fantasy,” Johnson-Trammell said. “But we can be transparent, we can be honest, we can lead with respect and compassion. But we cannot lose sight of the economics.”

The hardest part for school boards might not even be closing schools. It might come later — ensuring a smooth transition for displaced families and creating long-term financial plans so the district doesn’t go through the same upheaval next year.   

Districts need to consider even the smallest details, like whether the merged school will have a new mascot, or how new families will be included in school events, Hahnel and her colleagues said. And throughout the process, districts need to include teachers and parents at every step, she said.

Upsides of closures at Azusa Unified

Azusa Unified, a predominantly low-income and Latino district in Los Angeles County, recently managed to close schools with relatively little tumult, thanks in part to meticulous planning. With enrollment dropping from about 12,000 to 6,000 over the last two decades, the need to close schools was inevitable, but a transparent process minimized the disruptions, Superintendent Arturo Ortega said.

The key, Ortega said, was a planning committee made up of parents, union representatives and district administrators, who held a series of community meetings to hear concerns and suggestions. The committee made clear the need for school closures, live-streamed meetings on YouTube and kept a regularly updated website. After months of discussions, the committee submitted recommendations to the school board, which approved the plan.

The result was a series of closures, mergers and school relocations that Ortega said has led to a slew of upsides: the high school baseball team won the division championship; teachers have more opportunities to collaborate; elementary schools have improved art programs and science labs; the middle school has a new college and career center, science lab and improved sports field; and the high school has more Advanced Placement classes, career pathways and a stronger sports program.

“It was important for us that our community understood the ‘why’ behind the school reorganization process,” Ortega said. “Our ‘why’ was to increase and improve our programs and facilities.”

Closures, opportunities in Inglewood

The story of Inglewood Unified is both a cautionary tale for districts that refuse to address declining enrollment, and a success story for those who are navigating the closure process. A dozen years ago, faced with fewer students and a constricting budget, the school board opted not to close schools or make budget cuts and instead borrowed $29 million from the state to close a budget gap. As a condition of the loan, the state took over district operations, appointing its own administrator and stripping all but advisory power from the school board.

James Morris is the ninth state-appointed administrator in the role, taking over two years ago. He closed one school and plans to close five more next year. There was resistance, he said, but he had little choice: Two decades ago the district had 18,000 students; now, it’s down to 7,000.

“I’m old and I’m tough and I’m going to stay here until the job is done,” said Morris, a former assistant superintendent at Los Angeles Unified. “The children in this district are so full of hope and promise, they deserve the best schools we can give them.”

Closing schools has meant laying off staff and closing schools that had expensive maintenance needs. It also stoked the wrath of the community, leading to marathon school board meetings with hundreds of anguished speakers.

But the school closures have allowed the district to invest in the new merged schools, modernizing campuses and adding resources. For example, Woodworth-Monroe Academy, a merged TK-8 school, now has a wellness center and more clubs and activities for students. Inglewood High School now has a marching band with 100 students, and a new design, technology and entrepreneur academy sponsored by Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and music recording mogul Jimmy Iovine.

And the community has come around, at least a little. The alumni association of Morningside High, one of the high schools slated to close, actually endorsed its closure because it means students will have more opportunities.

“You can’t have a world-class city if you don’t have a world-class education system,” Morris said. “And that’s what our job has to be.”

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Education has never been a top priority of President-elect Donald Trump’s, but that doesn’t mean schools — or students — will be immune from Trump’s agenda in the next four years, education experts say. 

Trump may slash school funding, cut civil rights protections and gut the U.S. Department of Education, based on his previous statements and the visions outlined in the Republican platform and Project 2025, a conservative manifesto reimagining the federal government. 

But students may experience the most devastating effects. Trump has threatened mass deportations of undocumented residents and crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, which could lead to higher absenteeism, higher rates of bullying and greater anxiety generally on school campuses.

“The stress created by the threat of deportations cannot be overestimated,” said UCLA education professor John Rogers, who’s studied how politics plays out in K-12 education. “It absolutely will have an impact on attendance, and it absolutely will affect parents’ ability to participate in their children’s education.”

Student absenteeism has improved somewhat in California since the COVID-19 pandemic, but remains very high — 24.3% last year. During the first Trump presidency, Latino student attendance and academic performance dropped significantly in areas affected by deportation arrests, according to a 2018 Stanford study. 

During Trump’s first term, his deportation efforts were foiled a bit by the courts and by disorganization at the White House, Rogers said, but those obstacles aren’t likely to be present this time.

That could leave thousands of children vulnerable to deportation or becoming separated from their parents. More than 115,000 children in California were undocumented in the most recent census count, and almost half of California children have at least one immigrant parent, the Public Policy Institute of California reported. Most of the undocumented residents are from Latin America, but a majority of newer arrivals come from Asia.

Threat to cut $8 billion for California schools 

LGBTQ students are also likely to face challenges under a Trump presidency. Trump has often disparaged “woke” policies that protect the rights of trans students and threatened to withhold federal funding for states that uphold those policies. In California, that could mean a loss of about $8 billion, or 7% of the overall education budget.

But beyond financial matters, the anti-LGBTQ language is likely to exacerbate challenges for trans students, Rogers said. Students’ rights to use bathrooms and play on sports teams that align with their gender identity are among the protections that Republicans have singled out for elimination.   

“This election proved that the culturally divisive rhetoric can be an effective way to garner public support,” Rogers said. “Now that Trump has a bully pulpit, I expect we’ll see an amplification of this rhetoric.”

Mike Kirst, former president of the State Board of Education, agreed that the threat of deportations may be Trump’s biggest effect on California schools. 

“If they succeed in deporting a lot of families, that will be horrific for California schools,” Kirst said. “That’s what keeps me up at night.”

More power to the states?

The other proposals — dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, or eliminating “woke” curriculum, for example — would be complicated and time-consuming to accomplish, he said. Eliminating the Department of Education would require majority votes in Congress, which would be a difficult hurdle because the department provides many popular programs with bipartisan support, such as special education.

Curriculum is left to the states, and the federal government has no input.

Traditionally, Republican presidents have sought to minimize the federal government’s role in education, leaving most decisions to the states. If Trump takes that approach, California’s mostly Democratic leadership would have some independence from the Republican power brokers in Washington, D.C., Kirst said.  

Regardless, Trump would be able to use executive orders to scale back Title I, which provides benefits to low-income students, and Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination. And school choice, school vouchers and promotion of charter schools are likely to be priorities of the incoming Secretary of Education, although it’s not clear how much impact those policies would have in California.

Trump has also been outspoken in his opposition to teachers unions, saying he wants to eliminate tenure and institute merit pay.

The California Teachers Association, which campaigned heavily for Vice President Kamala Harris, said it was undeterred by Trump’s attacks.

“We are prepared to stand up against any attacks on our students, public education, workers’ rights and our broader communities that may come,” union president David Goldberg said. “We’re committed to fight for the future we all deserve.”

In a rare display of unity, Los Angeles Unified board members and union leaders also vowed to push back against any policies that would negatively affect students and families.

“We stand together in our commitment to protect, affirm and support everyone in the Los Angeles Unified community,” the groups released in a joint statement. “We will always provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all students, families and employees.”

State leaders fight back

At the state level, elected officials said they’d fight Trump’s efforts to interfere in California. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Friday said he’d ask the governor to backfill any funds the federal government withholds from California, and he’d sponsor legislation to protect students.

He also reminded school districts that laws already exist to protect undocumented and LGBTQ students. AB 1955, passed this year, bans school staff from “outing” students to their families. And Plyler vs. Doe, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case, prohibits schools from denying students an education based on their immigration status. The state offers a plethora of guidance on how schools can support LGBTQ and immigrant students and their families. 

“While others demonize education, we will continue to help California students, wherever they are,” Thurmond said.

Attorney General Rob Bonta vowed to fight Trump’s policies with legal action, much as his predecessor Xavier Becerra did by filing or joining more than 100 lawsuits during the first Trump term. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week said he’d work with the Legislature to fund those lawsuits and otherwise “Trump-proof” California.

Students, meanwhile, are waiting to see how the policies — and pushback — will play out in the coming months. Maria Davila, a high school senior in Beaumont in Riverside County, said that for now, she’s not overly worried about how a Trump presidency would affect schools. Some of her peers are concerned, she said, but she has faith that student activism and adult leadership will protect young people from the most extreme outcomes.

“In California we have legislative leaders who listen to students and care about young people,” said Davila, a volunteer with a youth advocacy group called GenUp. “I think we’ll get the support we need. Students can be hopeful.”

The University of California is eyeing a looming budget gap of half a billion dollars next year. To help balance the books it’s relying in part on its out-of-state undergraduates. 

Meanwhile, the system is pouring tens of billions of dollars into construction projects for seismic retrofitting, new classrooms and medical centers — while also acknowledging it lacks the funding to build or renovate most of what it needs. 

Out-of-state undergraduates at the UC are charged more than three times the total tuition in-state students are expected to pay. Now system leaders have increased the supplemental tuition for new non-resident undergraduates by $3,402 next fall, an amount that’s $2,208 more than what the supplemental tuition would increase by under existing UC policy.

A UC regents committee approved the new hike Wednesday; the full board voted to greenlight the measure today.

One regent, Jose M. Hernandez, voted no. Two elected state leaders on the board, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, abstained from voting.

“I just want to be on the record opposing the tuition increase, and also on the record recognizing the commitment of staff to continue to work to evaluate and understand these decisions to increase the cost of attendance for out of state students,” Kounalakis said today.

Under a model passed in 2021, each new cohort of undergraduates sees higher tuition and fees than the previous crop of new students but that tuition stays flat for their time at the UC. In-state students are charged tuition and a systemwide fee. Out-of-state students are charged that plus a much larger supplemental fee. The base tuition and fee would go up as planned under the 2022 model; only the supplemental fee would rise at a higher than expected amount.

All told, it would mean new nonresident undergraduates would pay $52,536 in total mandatory tuition next fall, excluding separate campus fees that are an average of $1,700. Current new nonresident undergraduates pay $48,636 annually, plus campus fees.

The move would affect the roughly 15% of UC undergraduates, including transfer students, who live outside of California and will begin their studies at the university system next fall. The increase wouldn’t affect current students or future graduate students.

“As UC prepares for an anticipated state budget cut that could impact student services across the entire system, we are proposing an increase to support core operations without raising costs for current students and California residents,” wrote UC spokesperson Omar Rodriguez in an email.

The hike would increase revenue by about $41 million for the system annually, Rodriguez wrote.

The impending half-billion shortfall next summer would occur if state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom make good on a deal to delay previously promised new money for the UC and apply a cut to its state support.

UC’s operating revenue is estimated to be about $53 billion in 2024-25. Most of that is from the system’s medical services work, including hospitals. Its core mission of educating students, largely faculty salary and benefits as well as financial aid, makes up about $11 billion of the system’s budget. That amount is almost evenly paid for with state dollars and a combination of tuition revenue and other university funds.

It’s among the numerous fiscal details that emerged at the regents’ regularly scheduled November meeting, including the revelation that the UC plans to spend $30 billion to repair or replace its increasingly aging stock of academic buildings, medical centers and dorms by decade’s end. And yet, that massive sum falls far short of the 10-campus system’s stated construction needs  — a total of $53 billion in projects without a funding source.

The building spree is occurring as UC trundles toward a goal of adding 23,000 new California students by 2030 — fueled in part by lawmaker demands that the vaunted system make space for more California high schoolers.

The tuition hike in context

In some ways the emphasis on out-of-state students is a return to form for the UC, which both relies on these students for the much higher tuition they pay but also is under pressure by lawmakers to limit how many non-Californian undergraduates the system enrolls.

Eduardo Tapia Jr-Urbieta, an executive officer for the UC Student Association, which represents undergraduate students, said that the student association opposes the increase. “Opportunity to higher education should not face any more barriers. Instead of increasing the salaries of UC administrators, let’s make sure college is more affordable for all,” he told regents yesterday.

Those September raises came in two waves: 4.2% for senior UC officials, such as the system president and most campus chancellors, and extra raises, including for most of the chancellors — ranging from 16% to 33%. The extra chancellor raises are paid with private donations, not tuition or state support. The updated chancellor salaries range from $785,000 to nearly $1.2 million

Nonresident undergraduate students tend to have higher family incomes than resident students. In 2021, 45% of nonresident undergraduates had family incomes of above $185,000. The same was true for 25% of undergraduates from California. Nearly three-quarters of nonresident undergraduates came from households exceeding $93,000; for California-based undergrads, it was 45%.

Still, nonresident students on average pay much more to attend a UC campus, even after all financial aid is factored into their costs. The net price — which includes tuition, housing and other related costs minus grants and scholarships — for resident undergraduates with household incomes above $180,000 was around $37,000 a year last fall. For nonresident undergraduates, the average net price was $67,000.

“I support it (the nonresident tuition increase). I’ll get pushback for that, but here we are,” said Josiah Beharry, a student regent who can cast a vote on the board.

UC officials said that compared to some other major public universities, UC’s nonresident undergraduates pay lower nonresident fees. For example, University of Michigan nonresident students paid $11,500 more than their nonresident UC peers in 2023-24. University of Virginia nonresident undergraduate paid $7,000 more. Even when adjusting for living costs, nonresident Californians are charged less for their education, UC officials said.

UC policy permits 20% of new nonresident tuition revenue to be reserved for financial aid for nonresident undergraduates.

$30 billion in planned construction

The $30 billion construction plan — and $50 billion in projects without a funding source — were spelled out in a new, 207-page report detailing construction plans that UC budget officials presented to the system’s regents yesterday.

“The University’s enrollment growth and continuing needs for renewal, modernization and seismic correction of existing facilities are the key drivers of capital investments,” the report said. 

Cranes have been soaring above the system’s campus skylines for years.

Since 2011, the UC has added beds for 42,000 students, growing from nearly 75,000 beds. The increase means the system can house 40% of its students, up from 32% a decade ago. 

And UC isn’t done as it’s on track to build dorm space for 14,000 new beds at all nine undergraduate-serving campuses through 2030 — at a cost of $6.9 billion. That’s nearly half-a-million-dollars per bed. 

But while student housing projects can largely pay for themselves over time through the rents campuses charge, classroom buildings have fewer sources of cash beyond system bonds and state dollars — which the UC says are hardly enough to meet campus needs.

Take for example all the seismic repairs UC says it must undergo to extend the life of its buildings, with structures built in the 1950s and 1960s representing the largest chunk of UC’s gargantuan building footprint. UC has $16 billion in seismic retrofit needs but only identified funding for 16% of that, or $2.5 billion, last academic year.

It’s not just finding money that’s a concern for UC. As buildings undergo remodeling, the classrooms, research and other activity core to the system’s mission has to continue. “The scope and complexity of planning required to minimize these disruptions can often necessitate the construction of temporary or replacement space,” the report read.

The scale of the need is vast. According to the UC, about 1,464 buildings require seismic upgrades across the system.

UC officials disclosed yesterday that the system is debuting a new plan in which campuses will reduce its backlog of structures that need seismic upgrades by 4% annually, with the structures most in need of an overhaul receiving priority.

And then there’s all the new construction UC needs. The system completed 139 projects at a cost of $1.4 billion last academic year — but has more than $20 billion in active construction plans for about 400 projects. More than half of those are for UC’s extensive medical care operation, in part to satisfy state rules on strengthening hospitals to better withstand earthquakes. 

Through 2030, UC’s construction plans total $30 billion, with about $12 billion for its medical centers. Philanthropy helps pay for all those projects, but only a little. Just about $2 billion of the construction plan budget will come from gifts. About $300 million will come from state funds directly — a relatively tiny portion of the overall revenue picture for the system’s six-year building plan. Much of the projects will be paid for with external financing, such as bonds that the system sells to investors. 

But that’s just projects with a funding source. UC Berkeley, for example, has more than $14 billion in construction needs but has identified the funding for just about $2.8 billion of that.

What is getting built at the system’s oldest campus? For starters, a new undergraduate academic building that’ll include 27 classrooms and a 400-seat auditorium with a rooftop terrace. All of that costs $137 million. It’s scheduled to open in the 2025-26 academic year.

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CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — In less than 15 minutes, Michael Mariscal validated why a team of officials at Cal Poly Humboldt have spent more than three years trying to set up the first bachelor’s degree program at a maximum-security prison in California. 

At the end of a class in persuasive speaking, Mariscal was tasked with giving a presentation to highlight his personal growth. His 22 classmates inside B Facility at Pelican Bay State Prison were skeptical: Just two weeks earlier, Mariscal had used his presentation time to give step-by-step directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

But today was different. 

“I’ve never told this to anyone before,” the 32-year-old Mariscal said, holding back tears as he explained his feelings when he learned at his trial that the state was requesting he be put to death. “I said, ‘That’s OK, that’s cool,’” showing no outward emotion at the time, he told the class. But inside his mind was reeling. 

“I’m not innocent; I did everything I was convicted for,” he quickly added, referring to a gang shooting that left two people dead. 

Mariscal went on to say that his brother had received a life sentence and been murdered while in prison. Mariscal himself was given five life sentences. He declared that he did not expect ever to be released, but finished by saying, “I can still live a meaningful life in here. Freedom is different for everybody.” 

A shocked silence filled the room before classmate Darryl Baca spoke up. “That’s some raw stuff right here. I recognize the potential in you.” 

“It’s not the first time I’ve cried after class,” the professor, Romi Hitchcock-Tinseth, said later, although she was teaching only her fourth session at the prison. 

Mariscal’s speech exemplified everything officials at Cal Poly Humboldt hoped to accomplish when they set out to create a satellite campus at one of the most notorious prisons in the country. They knew that earning a degree could help some men shorten their sentences and possibly land well-paying jobs once released. But they also hoped that the classes, and the camaraderie fostered there, would pay immediate dividends, lessening violence at the prison and improving students’ daily behaviors. Seeing Mariscal address his past while both sharing his feelings and mapping out a hopeful path forward just four weeks into the semester was validating, officials said.

California has been a leader in prison education programs, starting with a 2014 rule authorizing state funding for community colleges to set up programs for students who are incarcerated. Since then, some 25 community colleges and eight universities have established degree-granting programs that now cover every facility in the state. Humboldt’s Pelican Bay program is not only the state’s first bachelor’s initiative at a max-security prison; earlier this year, it became the first program in the country approved under new federal Department of Education rules to let incarcerated individuals access Pell Grant funds to pay for college. 

For about 29 years Pell money had been largely prohibited for individuals who are incarcerated, with the exception of a small federal pilot program that debuted in 2015. The new Pell rules made 767,000 people at state prisons nationwide eligible to pay for college with federal funds — starting with a handful of those at Pelican Bay. 

“We’re setting an example,” said Tony Wallin-Sato, a former Humboldt official who helped create the program. “If we can be successful at Pelican Bay, it can work anywhere.” 

Pelican Bay is one of the most infamous prisons in the country. Built in 1989 in the extreme northwest corner of California, the facility was created to isolate its occupants in two ways. Many of the men who are incarcerated there hail from the Los Angeles area, nearly 700 miles south. And nearly half of the facility’s units were built for solitary confinement, with some occupants stuck inside these 7-by-11-foot cells for decades. 

A “60 Minutes” report in 1993 highlighted excessive force by guards, and a 1995 lawsuit exposed inadequate medical care. In 2013, people incarcerated there staged a two-month hunger strike that spread throughout the state’s prisons to protest the excessive use of solitary confinement. 

But program staffers and people incarcerated at the facility say day-to-day life there now bears little resemblance to those days. About 400 of the prison’s 2,200 incarcerated men currently take classes that include GED preparation, courses from four community colleges and, now, Humboldt’s new bachelor’s program. 

Pelican Bay “used to be one of the most violent prisons in the country. Now it’s not,” said Mark Taylor, a Humboldt official who spent more than 21 years incarcerated before helping to create this program.

In fact, incarcerated students openly drop hints around Kari Telaro Rexford, the prison’s supervisor of academic instruction, telling her they hope she’ll soon bring in a master’s degree program. “I’m trying,” she tells them. 

Humboldt prison program ‘makes people safer’

Rebecca Silbert, the deputy superintendent of higher education for the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has watched every program that has started in the eight years since bachelor’s degree programs began in state prisons. “Because of the involvement of senior leadership,” she said, “Cal Poly Humboldt’s was the easiest by far.” 

Yet Silbert admitted she first tried to talk officials out of creating this program. “Are you sure?” she said she asked them. “It’s easy to be starry-eyed in the beginning, but it’s an endeavor.”

Humboldt’s provost, Jenn Capps, said she agreed with that assessment but pushed on because the program “makes people safer.” Offering bachelor’s degree classes helps “disrupt the narrative” of violence in these men’s lives, making life safer for them, their families, guards at Pelican Bay, and ultimately the public, she argued. 

“There are lots of myths out there about people who are incarcerated,” Capps said. “But everybody wants community safety. Offering prison education programs is key to community safety.” 

A team of Cal Poly Humboldt officials worked for more than two years before beginning the program in January. The university’s communications department chair, Maxwell Schnurer, taught a class at the prison through the College of the Redwoods to understand why that community college’s program had been so successful. Redwoods began with one course at the prison in 2015, and its program has since mushroomed to 43 courses serving 390 students, said Tory Eagles, the college’s Pelican Bay Scholars program manager. 

As of this semester, the university has ramped up to four classes, each of which are taken by all of the school’s 23 students. Each student had already earned associate degrees and all are now communications majors. Humboldt’s five-year plan is to add other majors and expand to two more of the prison’s four yards, said Steve Ladwig, the director of the university’s Transformative and Restorative Education Center.

Being the first program the federal government authorized to use Pell Grants for incarcerated men put a spotlight on Humboldt’s work. But actually getting those funds has proven to be hard, largely because of the federal Department of Education’s botched rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, last year. 

Although all of Humboldt’s students are eligible for Pell, only about half of the 23 have had their applications reviewed by the Department of Education so far, said Ladwig. While the university waits for approval of its students’ Pell Grants, it is covering tuition for each student, he added. 

When Humboldt staged a ceremony to hand incarcerated individuals their college acceptance letters, Ladwig had to venture to the prison’s solitary confinement wing to deliver Mariscal’s letter, because he was being punished for getting into a fight. 

Decades in solitary confinement

Darryl Baca — the student who praised Mariscal after his classroom speech — epitomizes the entire history of Pelican Bay. He came to the prison in 1990, only months after it opened. He spent his first 25 years in solitary confinement, where many incarcerated individuals with gang backgrounds were placed. He was part of the 2013 hunger strike that led to changes in how the prison uses solitary. Now he’s not only a straight-A student, but someone both staff and fellow students look to for guidance. 

As Mariscal unspooled his revelation, Baca noticed the seven-minute timer the instructor had set was about to go off and interrupt his speech. From his seat at the front of the class, Baca reached over and deftly paused the timer while handing Mariscal a tissue. 

Baca said it took him three tries to earn his GED. Later, he used correspondence courses to secure an associate degree. He continued his education with College of the Redwood’s courses and said he recently passed up a chance to transfer to a lower-security prison because of his Humboldt classes.

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said. The college classes have erased the barriers that typically exist among prisoners of different backgrounds, he explained. While classmates support each other, many people at the prison “are making better choices now. The culture has evolved. We’re like a campus now.” 

Baca isn’t the only person incarcerated at Pelican Bay who has rejected possible transfers to other prisons. Others said they made the difficult decision to pass up the chance to be moved closer to home and earn a lower-security designation because they wanted to continue in Humboldt’s classes. “I told my family, ‘I want to see you and get closer, but I can’t transfer,’” said Davion Holman, 35, who is originally from the Los Angeles area. Holman, sentenced to 31 years in 2013, told his classmates that before being arrested, he liked school. “I knew I was smart, but I was content being stupid,” he said. 

“We take it serious because it is serious,” he added. 

Humboldt Professor Roberto Mónico, who teaches a course called multiethnic resistance in the U.S., says at times it feels more like a graduate-level seminar than an undergraduate class. Students are well prepared, he said, with “all the readings marked up,” and they drop in references to the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Yet they can be sensitive about not knowing how to create a PowerPoint presentation or other computer skills because of their lack of formal education. 

“If I tell them to read two out of five essays, they read all five,” said Hitchcock-Tinseth. Added Ladwig: “They are phenomenally well prepared to take on a bachelor’s degree.” 

Being in a college classroom and able to debate ideas freely is “not mirrored in a lot of other prison experiences,” said Ruth Delaney, who directs the Vera Institute of Justice’s Unlocking Potential initiative, which helps colleges develop prison programs.  

Francisco Vallejo admitted he struggled when he first began taking community college classes, dropping some before trying again the next semester. But now he hopes his academic progress will bolster his case for parole in 2026. “I had to train to be a student,” he said. “Redwoods gives you the tools, but you use them at Humboldt.”

Student Dom Congiardo said the prison environment teaches people to guard their feelings. But taking college classes shows them “you don’t have to be afraid to open up,” he said. “You won’t be judged for it. It’s all new territory for us.” 

Carlson Bryant is another student who declined a transfer to stay in Humboldt’s program. At 41 years old, he’s been at Pelican Bay since 2003, more than half his life. 

Bryant said he was scared of the prison’s reputation when he came to Pelican Bay at age 19. “In the beginning, I would have left so fast,” he said. “But there’s too much positive stuff here. It changes you all the way around.” 

Contact editor Lawrie Mifflin at 212-678-4078 or mifflin@hechingerreport.org. 

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program. 

This story about prison education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger higher education newsletter.

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With California’s fund for school repairs on empty, voters approved a $10 billion bond to pay for much-needed upgrades at K-12 schools and community colleges.

“This is very good news for all students,” said Adam Clark, superintendent of Mt. Diablo Unified in Contra Costa County. “In our district, we have so many fundamental repair needs – electrical, plumbing, roofs, windows – and this relieves the pressure. It means we can get to work.”

Proposition 2 will help fix dry rot, mold, malfunctioning electrical systems, gas leaks and other health and safety hazards that plague hundreds of aging campuses. At least 38% of the state’s K-12 students attend schools that don’t meet the minimum safety standards, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

“This is critical for the education of our students, in every community, up and down the state,” said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative advocate for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, a nonprofit that pushes for school facilities funding. “Students need to be in safe facilities. Learning outcomes depend on it.”

Schools are especially desperate because the state’s last school facilities bond, a $15 billion bond in 2020, failed. That has left the state’s school repair fund depleted, with an ever-growing list of needs. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that it would cost more than $100 billion to fix every leaking roof and broken heater on California’s campuses.  

Since California overhauled its school funding formula in the late 1980s, state and local bonds are the only source of money for school repairs and modernization. Prop. 2 gives $8.5 billion to K-12 schools and  $1.5 billion to community colleges. It needed a simple majority to pass.

Voters appear to favor Proposition 2

Californians showed steady support for Prop. 2, according to polls. A survey in October found that 52% of voters favored the proposition, with higher levels of support among Democrats and voters in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Inland Empire. That support has been fairly consistent since the Legislature in June approved putting the bond on the ballot.  

Prop. 2 garnered bipartisan endorsements, including from the state Democratic and Republican parties, the California Teachers Association, the California Chamber of Commerce, as well as a slew of education organizations.

Supporters are confident that Prop. 2 will not meet the same fate as the previous school facilities bond. That bond, Proposition 13, was confusing to voters because it shared a name with the famed 1970s tax reform measure, Kalleen said. Other factors contributing to the defeat were the election date, which was March 2020, as pandemic shutdowns began, and the large dollar amount of the bond. 

As of Oct. 24, Prop. 2 backers had raised $12.3 million, with the bulk coming from the California Teachers Association, California Building Industry Association and Kalleen’s group. 

The only formal opposition to Prop. 2 was from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Republican from Corona, who argued that taxpayers already give ample support to schools, and the state should pay for school repairs out of the existing general fund budget. They also argued that sooner or later, state bonds translate to higher taxes.

“Bonds are borrowed money that must be paid back, plus interest, even if that means cutting vital programs to do it,” the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association wrote in its ballot argument. “Governor Newsom recently declared a budget emergency because California spends more than it takes in. Children in school today will be drowning in new debt for decades if Prop. 2 passes.”

As of Oct. 24, opponents had not reported any campaign donations to the Secretary of State.

The San Francisco-based, nonprofit public interest law firm Public Advocates agrees with the need for school facilities funding, but has opposed the way California would distribute the money. The state would give out most of the money based on matching grants, which means that school districts that can raise more money through local bonds — typically, larger and wealthier districts — can collect more Prop 2 funds. 

Prop. 2 sets aside $1 billion for smaller and lower-income districts and includes a sliding scale that would give more money to smaller districts, but the scale is not nearly wide enough, Public Advocates argued. 

Public Advocates had threatened to sue if the measure passes, but on Tuesday night the firm’s managing attorney John Affeldt said no decision had been made yet.

“Voters appear to be correctly recognizing the desperate need for capital financing for our public schools, but I don’t think this is an endorsement of the Legislature’s plan to distribute the funds,” Affeldt said Tuesday night.

But even with the inequities, Prop. 2 is a lifeline for most school districts, especially those with limited abilities to raise local money. 

“Right now, we have classrooms that are so badly rusted that chunks of iron beams in the roof regularly fall off the buildings,” said Eric Gross, superintendent of Pacific Elementary in Davenport, near Santa Cruz. “If Prop. 2 passes, we can replace dilapidated classrooms and build new classrooms to accommodate our growing enrollment.”