- The Trump administration is eliminating $350 million in funding for minority-serving colleges nationwide.
- California community colleges rely on the funding for programs that include supporting students pursuing science degrees.
- Colleges are now scrambling to find new funding sources to preserve the initiatives.
Sarahi Sanchez Soto credits the resources at Reedley College in the Central Valley — counseling, math tutoring, a food pantry — with strengthening her resolve to study computer science and information studies and transfer from the community college to a four-year university.
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The lab and a dedicated counselor that have supported her are funded by a Hispanic-Serving Institution grant, through a federal program available to colleges where Latino students make up at least 25% of enrollment.
“Once I started doing this program, I started noticing that the college course material was something that I could do,” said Soto, who also took advantage of dual community college courses in high school. “It wasn’t difficult. And if it was difficult, I had these support systems that were able to help me.”
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But now, the future of the support she receives and other initiatives funded by HSI grants are in peril. The Trump administration is eliminating the grant programs for HSIs and other Minority-Serving Institutions. In announcing the cuts last month, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the grants “discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas.”
Much of the tension between the Trump administration and higher education has focused on cuts to science and medical research at elite universities. But at California’s community colleges, which don’t conduct research, the HSI and MSI grant cuts are the most consequential federal cut yet, targeting services meant to support students such as Soto working to overcome hurdles in their college journeys.
At least 97 of the state’s 116 community colleges are designated as HSIs. The colleges with active grants have until next year to spend funds that they have already received. Then such federal funding — about $20 million statewide — will be eliminated.
So let me get this straight…..25% of the students demand subsidy by the rest?
I have a good friend who comes from that area … happens to be Hispanic origin and says it is BS.
He worked his way through CC and a 4 year degree, and did not come from privilege.
Kind of like this anglo guy typing this answer who worked for every day he was in college.
Well back to hard work and initiative.
Que Lastima, get a job and do it like we all did pay off your loans and stop getting freebies by the dumb voters of California and that goes for reparations too.