This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
By Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters
The University of California will enroll fewer new California students if planned state cuts are implemented, college officials told state lawmakers during a hearing today on the system’s finances.
“University of California cannot afford to continue increasing enrollment with less funding, it just can’t,” said UC’s top academic officer, Katherine Newman, at an Assembly budget subcommittee hearing. “If the state cuts the university by 8%, we will be forced to decrease enrollment for the fall of 2026 admission cycle.”
The comments are the strongest indication yet that the proposed budget cuts for UC and the California State University that lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to last year may limit the ability of new students to enter California’s public universities. The fiscal belt-tightening is a response to forecasted multi-billion-dollar deficits in California. For UC, the proposed state cuts add to the climate of fiscal uncertainty: The Trump administration has sought to lower the system’s federal research funding by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The UC has grown its enrollment of California undergraduates by 16,000 in the last five years, fueled by a swell of state cash as lawmakers grapple with voters’ demands to open more seats at the state’s marquee public higher-education system. The Legislature has also in recent years been adding $30 million annually to UC’s state support so that it enrolls fewer out-of-state students and more in-state students at its three most popular campuses, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego. That funding is at risk of being deferred in 2025-26.
“So blowing up class sizes, reducing advising, limiting opportunities for our students: This is not a recipe for the continued success at the University of California, and we would not want to go in that direction,” Newman said.
If the UC ends its enrollment growth, it won’t happen until next year. That’s because the UC has already admitted students for the coming fall term.
While other state agencies were cut by nearly 8% cut in last year’s budget, UC and Cal State were given a year to plan for their share of the permanent cuts. Those would total roughly $770 million annually if lawmakers and Newsom agree to them this June as part of negotiations for the 2025-26 budget. UC’s share would be about $400 million.
But an Assembly legislative analysis calculated that other state agencies are experiencing much lower cuts — around 2% or 3%. As a result, the proposed cuts to UC and Cal State would represent more than half of the $1.5 billion in state spending decreases planned for 2025-26 in Newsom’s January budget proposal. About 50 members of the Assembly signed letters opposing the proposed university cuts, the meeting agenda said. Legislative budget leaders also sounded the alarm on the cuts in February in a letter to Newsom’s Department of Finance.
“However, given numerous General Fund pressures facing the state, it is unclear whether the Legislature will have the ability to restore the cuts,” the agenda for today’s hearing said.
The chair of the Assembly’s budget subcommittee on education finance, David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista, asked UC senior officials how much the state could cut and still leave student academics largely unaffected, including graduation rates and other endeavors that “ensure that student access remains the same.”
For UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, the answer was about $30 million, much less than the roughly $73 million in state cuts the campus would absorb under the current plan. Systemwide, the UC’s 10 campuses could tolerate an ongoing cut of $125 million, said Seija Virtanen, a UC government relations official.
Also Read
- Santa Barbara’s 40-Year-Old Metaphysical Bookstore Paradise Found Is Listed for Sale
- Historic 1880 Union Hotel in Los Alamos to Reopen for Overnight Stays After Over a Decade
- Sprawling Ranch-Style Multi-Parcel Estate With Ocean Views in Santa Barbara Listed for $3.295 Million
- Small Laundry-Room Fire in Nipomo Quickly Contained
- 2.8 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes San Ramon Area, No Damage Reported
25% of all UC students are non residents.
No need to cut California admissions to California students. If you’re going to cut enrolment just cut non residents.
In 2023-2024, 16.3% of all undergraduates students were out of state or international.
Out of state students pay SIGNIFICANTLY more tuition than in-state students – so decreasing enrollment of out of state students will exacerbate any funding problem that UC has.
UC tuition is zero for any Cal resident whose family income is <$100k a year. UC tuition for in state students is roughly $15k per year, and out of state is $50k per year.
In fact, 53 percent of UC’s California undergrads pay no tuition. Seems generous.
No resident should pay any tuition – that would be the smart thing to return to.
In general, I don’t get all the opposition to the UCs and even SBCC educating students from out of state or even international. Diversity of backgrounds and life experiences make an institution that much more enriching.
As for this particular issue though, sounds like cutting the budget isn’t the way to go. Cutting enrollment, however, should be the last resort. I’m betting there’s plenty areas the UCs and CSUs can cut spending on to prevent reducing enrollment. As recent events have shown, America is disastrously undereducated. We can contribute to that by cutting education budgets anymore than they’ve already been.