Second thoughts at the legislature

The governor will soon be presenting his May Revise budget proposal. From the perspective of the legislature, despite all the PR that UC gives its research agenda, the typical legislator hears from parents whose kids didn't get into the UC of their choice. The fact that what gives prestige to the campuses that are disappointing parents is research doesn't register. 

Back in the Good Old Days, people are told - maybe by grandparents - it was easy to get into, say, UCLA. Now it is hard. It is also true, however, that the population of California has grown by a factor of around 2.5 since 1960, the date of the Master Plan. And more kids finish high school and want to go to college now. 

It is also true that the state has a lot more on its plate than it did in the early 1960s. Example: The state didn't worry about funding Medi-Cal back then because there was no Medi-Cal. So, despite the Master Plan's promise of no tuition, i.e., full state funding, UC gets a mix of tuition and funding. It gets a lot more money from out-of-state and international students than it does from in-state enrollees. 

To make room for more in-state students at the prestige campuses, the state required fewer out-of-state admissions and promised to reimburse UC for the loss or revenue. But that turns out to be expensive. So now the legislature is having second thoughts about the deal. From CalMatters:

In 2022, faced with mounting criticism from California parents and students who couldn’t get into the state’s three premier public universities, legislators and UC officials struck a deal. UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego would admit a combined 900 more in-state students a year, and the state would up their budgets to cover the loss of revenue from non-resident students, who pay three times what in-state students pay. 

That deal has since cost taxpayers $276 million and allowed around 3,000 more students to enroll at the three universities. While the costs were expected, the number is far higher than the annual $31 million figure Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators routinely cite for funding the in-state student expansion, a CalMatters analysis shows. Now, with one year to go in the five-year plan, some are wondering whether the program’s high costs should continue as-is, particularly as California faces several years of multibillion-dollar deficits...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/04/uc-admission/. (Dan Hare was nice enough to forward this article to yours truly.)

The fact is that you can always say that the marginal cost of adding one more kid in the back of the lecture hall is essentially zero. But that doesn't mean that adding thousands more will cost zero. And from UC's perspective, even if it were zero, those seats in the lecture hall could go to out-of-state students who pay more than in-state students. Since there are many in-state kids turned away, and many out-of-state kids turned away, the opportunity cost for UC of a seat is the difference between what the two kinds of students pay.

It has always been the case that you could "process" lots more undergraduate students cheaply. That's what CSU does. That's what the community colleges do. And that's why - as we have said on this blog umpteen times - the state needs a new Master Plan in which all the trade-offs are thrashed out rather ad hoc legislative directives.

What Milliken said about AI, Trump administration, and TPM - Part 2

Back on April 11th, we posted the audio of what UC President Milliken had to say at a PPIC conference two days earlier on AI, Trump, and TPM.* 

There were others at the event that were not included.

PPIC has now gotten around to posting the entire event (all participants) on YouTube.

You can see it at the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDgsPRC0qcM.

===

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/04/what-milliken-said-about-ai-trump.html.

Just a Reminder

UC President Clark Kerr hands
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown
---

From time to time, we like to remind folks - for all the good it does - about the need to develop and implement a new Master Plan for Higher Education, rather than make ad hoc legislative decisions. Currently, according to Capitol Weekly, there are four bills in the legislature that would make ad hoc adjustments:

...The California State University (CSU) system can already award some doctoral degrees, the scope of their offerings is limited to those that do not duplicate those provided by the University of California (UC). That restriction would go away under AB 2693 (Alvarez), which removes the requirement that the UC must approve any PhD offerings the CSU provides.

Restrictions on the California Community Colleges (CCC) system would also change under AB 2694, which would overturn a law that bars community colleges from offering a BA/BS degree if a similar program exists anywhere in the state. AB 2694 (Alvarez) would bar duplication “only within the same geographic region where there are documented unmet regional workforce needs.”

...AB 2301 [Soria] would establish a pilot program authorizing up to 10 community college districts to offer a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), in an effort to address California’s nursing shortage.

Another Alvarez bill (AB 664) would allow Southwestern College in South San Diego County to offer up to four workforce-aligned bachelor’s degree programs...

All four bills are now in the Assembly Committee on Higher Education. The deadline to pass policy bills is April 24th.

Full story at https://capitolweekly.net/californias-higher-education-master-plan-in-flux/.

Of course, putting a bill in the hopper doesn't mean it will be enacted and signed by the governor. But there already have been such bills that have been enacted and signed. And there are likely to be more.

And even without the bill, there is this:

From Santa Monica Patch: Santa Monica College has received approval from the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and the Accrediting Commission of Community & Junior Colleges to launch a Bachelor of Science degree in Cloud Computing. “This new baccalaureate degree marks an important moment for Santa Monica College in fulfilling our mission of continuing to be a leader in preparing students for careers, as well as transfers,” SMC Superintendent/President Dr. Kathryn E. Jeffery said.

The four-year degree will be SMC’s second, after its B.S. in Interaction Design (IxD)—which was launched as part of a landmark statewide pilot program in 2015—and is slated to meet regional needs in one of the fastest-growing sectors in the global economy...

Full story at https://patch.com/california/santamonica/santa-monica-college-launching-bachelor-s-degree-cloud-computing.

Donation

From the LA Times: UCLA, Cal State L.A. and Cal State Dominguez Hills will receive $110 million to bolster their mental health programs, providing financial assistance and clinical resources to students seeking to fill the gaps of a major statewide shortage in the field of social work. On Monday, the universities announced that the Ballmer Group — an investment group owned by Connie and Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and former Microsoft chief executive — would support an effort to expand social work, youth counseling and mental health programs in underserved neighborhoods, including South and East L.A...

Cal State L.A. will receive $48 million to add more students to its master of social work programs and provide more than 1,000 scholarships and grants for prospective students...

CSU Dominguez Hills will use part of its $29-million grant to launch Toros Heal L.A., an initiative to grow mental health resources in South L.A...

UCLA [will] use its $33-million grant to provide scholarships and develop a minor in youth behavioral health...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-04-06/ucla-csus-110-million-donation-mental-health-ballmer.

Closed Door (but a guess)

The Regents are having yet another meeting tomorrow about The Problem With The Feds.* You are not invited:

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/april26/meeting-notice_federal-april-7-2026.pdf.

===

*Yours truly is willing to guess - without evidence as the phrase goes nowadays - that this meeting will include discussion of the recent court decision described below. From the LA Times:

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts issued his order [last] Friday night in response to a lawsuit brought by California and 16 other Democratic-led states. The judge’s preliminary injunction applies only to public colleges and universities in the states that sued while the case proceeds through litigation. For now, the ruling grants a reprieve to the University of California and California State University systems, which said in court filings that the data request was onerous, rushed, risked student privacy and required administrators to track down hard-to-find information for hundreds of thousands of students that individual campuses log differently. In addition to race and GPA information, the Trump administration has asked for standardized test scores, grant aid amounts and family income...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-04-03/california-lawsuit-uc-csu-race-gpa-data-trump-administration.

Half & Half (and Half)

From an article in the LA Times describing a survey at CSU concerning the use and effect of AI:

...Faculty members are... split. The study says “56% report a positive effect on their teaching and research, and 52% report a negative effect. Faculty are the only group in the survey where a majority report both.”

Still, more than half of the faculty, 55%, said they use AI to develop course materials...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-04-01/csu-ai-survey-students-faculty.

Getting In - Part 3

We have been displaying Facebook ads aimed at parents who want their kids to get into top universities. But in California, to get into any UC or CSU, you must complete the A-G required courses in high school. Many don't. From CalMatters:

...Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up. Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.

California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language and one year of art. Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.  

CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.

Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this. Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show... 

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/03/college-admission-california/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 286

From Tuscon.com: Arizona’s public universities are required by state law to make decisions collaboratively between administration, faculty and staff, but faculty leaders say University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella has declined to sign a memorandum of understanding providing more detail on how that should work. Garimella is the first UA president “who has refused to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the faculty governance structure,” said Mona Hymel, chair of the UA Shared Governance Review Committee.

“If you don’t sign anything, you can’t be held to account,” Hymel said, adding, “It has absolutely hindered shared governance” not to have a document signed by Garimella, “because decisions, which used to be made together, are being made unilaterally.”

UA Faculty Chair Leila Hudson said Garimella’s first year as president led to some dissatisfaction among professors because he did not have elected faculty leadership participate in high-level hiring decisions. Mitch Zak, UA spokesperson, said Garimella and the university decline to comment on questions from the Star about Garimella’s reasons for not signing the memorandum, how important he thinks shared governance is to the functioning of a public university, and if he thinks memorandums such as this are necessary to practicing shared governance...

Full story at https://tucson.com/news/local/subscriber/article_89a864ca-fc24-42a4-8f00-f2e59a665b96.html.

===

From the NY Times: In the Bay Area, at least two universities have student centers named for Cesar Chavez. In the San Diego area, at California State University San Marcos, a plaza and a statue honor Mr. Chavez. And the University of Texas at Austin similarly honors Mr. Chavez in a bronze likeness. But the outpouring of anguish about sexual misconduct accusations against Mr. Chavez may not lead to his swift erasure from American college campuses.

...At the University of California, Berkeley, where the student center has celebrated Mr. Chavez since 1997, a committee reviews proposals from students, employees and graduates about rechristening buildings. If the panel advances the proposal for wider consideration, a lengthy process of public feedback begins before the committee prepares for a recommendation for the campus’s chancellor. The final decision rests with the president of the University of California system. A spokeswoman for the university system, Rachel Zaentz, said Wednesday that the 10-campus U.C. system was “deeply concerned about these troubling reports.” She added: “We stand firmly with survivors and are evaluating these findings internally. We will communicate updates when appropriate.”

...Fresno State’s president, Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, said Wednesday that the campus would keep a statue of Mr. Chavez covered “while we determine appropriate next steps for its removal.”

“At Fresno State, our values are grounded in dignity, respect and care for one another,” Dr. Jiménez-Sandoval wrote. “When we become aware of reports of such a serious nature, we must acknowledge their weight and hold space for those who have been harmed.”

Cal State San Marcos did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. David Knutson, a spokesperson for San Francisco State, where the student center carries the Chavez name, said the university was “committed to thoughtful dialogue around complex historical legacies while continuing to foster an inclusive and supportive campus environment.”

In a separate statement, the Cal State system, which has 23 campuses, said that it was “considering appropriate courses of action” and that it was “firmly committed to fostering university environments centered on respect, integrity and the safety and dignity of all members of our campus communities.”

The University of Texas at Austin declined to comment on Wednesday. The university, though, has previously removed statues with little warning. In 2017, soon after the violent unrest in Charlottesville, Va., campus workers took down several Confederate monuments overnight at the direction of the university’s president at the time.

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-fallout.

Lawsuit by the State

From the LA Times: California and 16 Democratic states are suing to challenge a Trump administration policy requiring higher education institutions, including University of California and California State University campuses, to collect data — including student grade-point averages — to prove they don’t illegally consider race in admissions. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is among the state attorneys general who filed the suit [last] Wednesday against a Department of Education rule that asks colleges to submit “the race and sex of colleges’ applicants, admitted students and enrolled students.” Bonta called the requirement a “fishing expedition” that is “demanding unprecedented amounts of data from our colleges and universities under the guise of enforcing civil rights law.” ...

The policy, announced in August, requires schools to submit disaggregated data on gender, race, grade-point averages and test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students by March 18...

The new policy is similar to parts of recent settlement agreements the government negotiated with Brown University and Columbia University, restoring their federal research money. The universities agreed to give the government data on the race, grade-point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to release admissions statistics to the public... The government made a similar ask of UC in August when it proposed a $1.2-billion settlement fine to resolve allegations of federal civil rights law violations at UCLA after cutting off more than half a billion dollars in federal medical, science, and energy research funding. UC President James B. Milliken said the university will not pay the fine but is open to talks with the Trump administration... 

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-12/california-sues-trump-over-policy-requiring-colleges-to-submit-race-test-score-admissions-data.

Note that it is unclear - apart from not being willing to pay $1.2 billion - what UC's position is with regard to the data request. Is it passively part of California's lawsuit? Did it have any input into the lawsuit? Any comments by UC on the specifics of the lawsuit? There are no recent statements on this matter posted on the UC news or federal developments websites.

The ongoing conflict with the feds is on the agenda of the Regents this week, but discussion will be behind closed doors.

Free

From columnist George Skelton, LA Times:

One unique perk California kids enjoyed for generations was tuition-free college. Now, a candidate for governor promises to bring that back... The candidate, former congresswoman Katie Porter of Orange County, even suggests a way to pay for her bold pledge... She‘d raise the corporate income tax a notch.

OK, it’s very unlikely to ever happen. The powerful business lobby would scream, even though California companies would benefit from a more educated workforce. And California’s public universities would probably cry about their revenue streams having to rely on unpredictable corporate profits rather than the pocketbooks of students’ parents.

...[One] reason for making college tuition-free again, she said, is that “it was a promise made to the people” by the California Master Plan for Higher Education... Free tuition [would be] only for California residents who are undergrads. And only in their third and fourth years at the University of California and California State University. If they desired free tuition in their first two years, they could attend community college. Many community colleges already waive course fees for full-time, first-time students...

Full column at https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2026-03-09/skelton-monday-politics-newsletter-porter-college-tuition.

The need is obvious

UC President Clark Kerr hands
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

We keep pointing to the need to set up a process in California to develop a new Master Plan for Higher Education. The old one goes back to 1960 and at this point has little relevance to actual policy. Meanwhile, the evidence for that need keeps piling up:

From EdSource: Moorpark College in Ventura County will offer a program in cyberdefense. At San Diego Mesa College, students will be able to get a degree as a physical therapy assistant. And at Southwestern College in San Diego County, students can study urban planning in the CaliBaja region and earn a degree in transborder environmental design. Those are among the newly approved bachelor’s degree programs at California community colleges — despite objections from California State University to all three degrees. It’s the latest development in an ongoing clash between the state’s two largest higher education systems over what kinds of bachelor’s degrees should be offered across the 116 community colleges. 

...Until now, top California community college officials, who have final decision-making power, have typically not approved degrees that face active objections from CSU campuses...

Frustrated by CSU’s opposition, some lawmakers and advocacy groups in Sacramento are moving to make it easier for community colleges to create the degrees. The Legislature this year could consider Senate Bill 960, which would restrict four-year universities from bringing duplication objections unless they are located near the community college. And the Community College League of California, an advocacy group, is floating the idea of a future ballot measure to do the same...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2026/california-community-colleges-approve-3-new-bachelors-degrees-over-california-state-university-objections/751678.

UC gets into the act

UC President Clark Kerr hand the
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

We have been posting about the need for a new Master Plan for Higher Education and citing the continued push by community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees.

As might be expected, most of the opposition to that push has come from CSU. But now UC has gotten into the act. From the Daily Cal:

The University of California released a letter opposing Assembly Bill 664, which would allow a California community college to offer additional bachelor’s degrees, arguing it may disrupt the organization of public higher education in the state. AB 664, authored by Assembly Member David Alvarez, would allow the Southwestern Community College District in San Diego County to offer up to four bachelor’s degree programs. Supporters say the bill will help students in a region without a nearby public university access higher education. Under current state law, community college districts may submit proposals to establish up to 30 bachelor’s degree programs each academic year. These proposals can be rejected by the UC and California State University for “program duplication.” 

“AB 664 circumvents this process by authorizing Southwestern Community College District to establish additional baccalaureate degree programs without regard to existing law requirements related to degree duplication and whether the districts have the expertise, resources, and student interest in the program,” said Jessica Duong, legislative director for the UC Office of the President, in the opposition letter to Mike Fong, chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. The letter also cited the California Master Plan for Higher Education...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/uc/uc-opposes-bill-allowing-southwestern-community-college-district-to-offer-bachelor-s-degrees/article_1df0748d-f942-4dd2-9410-a6acc00b7688.html.

It's tiresome to repeat...

From LA Times, 2-10-2026

========

It's tiresome to have to repeat that California needs a new Master Plan for Higher Education, or headlines such as the one above will keep repeating.

According to the LA Times article:

UC President Clark Kerr
hands Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown in 1960

...In the latest stress point, CSU has objected to 16 community college degree proposals, contending that they run counter to state law provisions designed to protect its own university degree offerings. Community college officials disagree and say their programs are uniquely designed to serve the needs of their district, as intended by the law. The tensions have brought into focus the changing role of community colleges since the adoption of California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education. The vaunted plan laid out three distinct public systems, with local community colleges primarily offering two-year associate’s degrees and serving as transfer launching pads to CSU and the University of California...

In an effort to bring accessible and lower-cost bachelor’s degree programs to more students, a 2021 Assembly bill allowed all 116 community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees to address “unmet workforce needs” in the districts they serve. The law expanded a 2014-approved pilot program, that allowed the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to develop bachelor’s degrees on 15 campuses. But... UC and CSU officials can object to any proposed degree that is “duplicative” of their offerings. Once an objection is raised, the program must be modified or dropped by the California Community Colleges chancellor’s office until the sides reach an agreement...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-10/community-colleges-cost-bachelors-degrees-csu-says-no-to-some.

Still Waiting for that New Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr hands the
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

On the thought that maybe repetition is a Good Thing, we will keep pointing to evidence that there is a need for a new Master Plan process to create a new Master Plan for Higher Education. The facts underlying that need just keep piling up:

From CalMatters: In the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed three bills that would have allowed community colleges to award students more bachelor’s degrees. Unfazed, lawmakers are now backing a fourth bill that does much of the same. The measure, Assembly Bill 664, cleared its first legislative tests by passing the Assembly Jan. 26, potentially setting up another collision course between state lawmakers and the governor.

While Newsom supports more bachelor’s degrees for students, he’s repeatedly stated his opposition to adding more community college baccalaureate programs that go outside an agreed-upon process in a law that he and lawmakers approved in 2021. That law said community colleges can develop up to 30 bachelor’s degrees per academic year, as long as the degrees do not duplicate the baccalaureate programs of the University of California and California State University.

But since then, community colleges and Cal State have disagreed on what counts as duplication, resulting in more than a dozen stalled community college bachelor’s programs because Cal State opposed them. Both public university systems oppose the latest bill. They fear more community colleges will seek their own degrees that duplicate what the universities offer, unraveling the 2021 law. The universities see themselves as the traditional generators of bachelor’s degrees. Community colleges say the state is too big and spread out to limit public four-year degrees to just the Cal State and UC...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/01/community-colleges-california-2/.

And things roll along without a Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr hands
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

As blog readers will know, yours truly periodically points to the need for a new Master Plan for Higher Education to allocate scarce resources and responsibilities among the three segments: UC, CSU, and the community colleges. Absent a Master Plan, however, things roll along on an ad hoc basis. Blog readers will also know that last week, proposals for various community colleges to offer (yet more) 4-year degrees were discussed. From EdSource:

California community college officials [last] Tuesday urged approval of proposed bachelor’s degree programs that have been blocked, in some cases for years, by California State University. The degrees were discussed at length during a meeting of the California Community Colleges system’s 17-member Board of Governors in Sacramento. State law allows community colleges to create bachelor’s degrees as long as the programs don’t duplicate what’s offered by the state’s four-year universities.

Fifty-four bachelor’s degrees are currently offered or will be soon at community colleges across the state. Most were approved in 2022 or later. Sixteen other proposed degrees that have been approved locally are still awaiting final sign-off from the state because of objections from CSU campuses. Many local community college leaders and students have grown frustrated by the delays. Seven of those degrees were initially proposed in 2023. No action was taken on Tuesday, but several board members said they support approving the degrees. That sentiment was echoed by many students, faculty and local college officials during a long public comment period...

Final decisions on the degrees are up to the president of the board of governors, who can approve them at the recommendation of the chancellor... Some campuses expect approvals as soon as this month... 

The blocked degrees include cybersecurity technology at Cerro Coso Community College, field ironworker supervision at Cerritos College, cybersecurity and network operations at Moorpark College, cloud computing at Santa Monica College, and building trades management at Foothill College, among others...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2026/community-college-officials-urge-approval-of-blocked-bachelors-degrees/748883.

Still More on the Need for a New Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr
hands the Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown in 1960

From EdSource: The board of governors overseeing California’s 116 community colleges... is expected to discuss proposed bachelor’s degrees that have been blocked by California State University. The board is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Sacramento. The meeting agenda includes a discussion item on the system’s baccalaureate degree program. State law allows the community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees so long as they fill a local workforce need and don’t duplicate what’s offered by the state’s four-year universities. 

More than 50 bachelor’s degrees are currently offered or will be offered soon at community colleges across the state, but several other proposals have stalled because of objections from CSU campuses, which argue the degrees would duplicate what they offer. In total, 16 proposed degrees are in limbo, including seven initially proposed in 2023. The local community colleges have grown increasingly frustrated, believing their proposed degrees are not duplicative and would serve students who otherwise would not pursue a bachelor’s degree. 

The board is not expected to take action at Tuesday’s meeting, but the discussion could clarify whether some or all of the degrees will be approved soon...

Full story at https://edsource.org/updates/community-colleges-board-to-discuss-bachelors-degrees-amid-csu-objections.

Even during the 1950s, a period of rapid growth in California, there was a sense is that there wasn't enough money for higher ed if everyone did everything. That's why the Master Plan came about. Surely, there are more constraints on resources now than there were back then. (Nobody ever heard of Medi-Cal back in the 1950s, because that state program didn't exist. Nowadays, state and local governments cover a broader field than they did in the 1950s.)

More on the need for a new Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr hands the
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

Yesterday, we posted about the need for a new Master Plan. In that post, we noted that community colleges were seen as competing with CSU by offering 4-year undergraduate degrees, to the dismay of CSU authorities. But, in a way, CSU is striking back through a program of automatically admitting high school students, some of whom might alternatively go to a local community college.

From CalMatters: What’s good for Riverside County is good for the whole state: After a pilot to automatically admit high school students into the California State University system in the Inland Empire county took off last fall, lawmakers this year passed a law to greenlight a similar program statewide next fall. Leaders at the California State University last year launched the pilot to attract more students to the university system and to steer some to campuses that have been struggling with enrollment declines.

The pilot worked like this: University officials and high schools in Riverside County pored over student course completion and grade data to identify every county high school senior who was eligible for admission to the 10 of 22 Cal State campuses chosen for the pilot. Then the students received a brochure in the mail last fall before the Nov. 30 submission deadline, plus digital correspondence, telling them they were provisionally admitted as long as they submitted an application to one or more Cal State campuses, even those not in the pilot, and maintained their high school grades.

Starting next fall, all students in California will be eligible for the automatic admissions program, which will expand the roster of participating Cal State campuses to 16. Cal State will release more information on the program’s implementation in February, its website says...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/12/cal-state-admission/.

============

In theory, UC might also be affected by community colleges diverting students into their bachelors programs or by CSU automatically admitting high school students, although the competitive nature of admissions to UC acts as a shield. But apart from students, there is also the question of limited state dollars going into higher ed, and who gets them.

Again - The State Needs a New Master Plan

UC President Clark Kerr hand the
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

Just about a year ago, we returned to a periodic theme on this blog: the need for a new Master Plan.* Back in the 1950s, California had UC, the state colleges (now CSU), and the community colleges (often under the same local authorities that ran the K-12 system). The 1960 Master Plan created a division of labor between the three systems. It expired in 1975 in its original form, although folks kept referring to it thereafter.

Basically, since that time, CSU has wanted to be more like UC and the community colleges have wanted to be more like CSU. But for a long time, those tendencies were held in check by the Master Plan - or at least the memories of it. But the erosion has accelerated.

From EdSource: A new analysis appears likely to bolster the attempts of some California community colleges to start offering bachelor’s degrees, despite protests from state universities that claim their own programs would be harmed.  For more than two years, proposed degrees from seven community colleges have been effectively blocked by California State University campuses, citing a state law that allows them to object to programs they believe duplicate their own degrees. The degrees would add to more than 50 others that are already offered at community colleges across the state. While officials emphasize that no final decisions have been made to approve the blocked degrees, a recently issued state-commissioned report sides with the community colleges on a pivotal point. The report by the nonprofit organization WestEd suggests that the location of a community college is a relevant factor and that bachelor’s degrees should not necessarily be considered duplicative if the objecting CSU campus is not geographically close to the community college. 

The WestEd report emphasizes that part of the legislative intent of Assembly Bill 927, the 2021 law allowing community colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, was to serve students who are place-bound and can’t leave their hometowns to attend college...

Dozens of new bachelor’s degrees have been approved around California without incident over the past few years. But for the blocked degrees, WestEd was contracted last year to conduct a neutral third-party report. That main report is an overarching analysis of the bachelor’s degrees and the approval process for them. Separately, WestEd also produced college-specific reports for each of the proposed degrees in question. WestEd declined comment for this story. The reports are informational and do not render final decisions. A community college system chancellor’s office spokesperson said discussions with CSU’s chancellor’s office are ongoing, and both systems declined to comment on the nature of those conversations. 

But officials from at least two community colleges say they have been told to expect favorable news as soon as mid-January, when the board of governors for the community college system next meets...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2025/blocked-by-csu-community-college-bachelors-degrees-closer-to-approval-following-new-analysis/747647.

In a way, we are back to the 1950s with no effective plan and lots of ad hoc decisions. But funding for higher ed is constrained. So, some form of a revised Master Plan is needed. For that to happen, however, Gov. Newsom would have to do what Gov. Pat Brown did back in the day and set the process in motion.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-plan-to-undo-plan.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/01/groping-for-new-master-plan.html.

Two

From CalMatters: The University of California serves 300,000 students, yet only one of the two students on the 26-member Board of Regents is allowed to vote. Now, student leaders are campaigning for a second vote, saying it would better ensure that UC policy reflects all students... 

Currently, the non-voting student spends the first year on the board as a “regent-designate.” That student then moves into the voting position the following year. The students are selected from an applicant pool of all UC graduate and undergraduate students and approved by the board. By adding a second vote for student regents, UC would follow in the footsteps of the other two public higher education systems in the state. Legislation passed earlier this decade enabled voting power for two student representatives on the California State University and California Community College governing boards...

In 2021, former Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda in the East Bay, introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, which would have required the creation of a second voting student regent. The Assembly Appropriations Committee determined that the amendment’s costs to the UC would be “minor and absorbable.” However, Glazer [said] that the committee decided the amendment would not progress, without specifying a reason...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/2025/11/uc-regents-student-voting/.

Note: The Regents experimented with appointing a non-voting student advisor briefly. The position ended in 2019. See: 

https://dailybruin.com/2019/01/17/uc-board-of-regents-votes-to-end-student-adviser-position-this-summer.

Whether there will be any discussion of this matter, perhaps in public comments, at the upcoming Regents meetings is unknown.

Straws in the Wind - Part 135

From Inside Higher Ed: California State University, Fresno, celebrated the launch of a new program this fall called Finish in Five, which allows students to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree within five years. University leaders were eager to offer students at the Central Valley campus—which serves large populations of first-generation and low-income students, many the children of local farmworkers—a streamlined pathway to high-demand STEM fields in an economically distressed region.

But less than a month later, the program’s funding, which came from a Hispanic-serving institution grant, abruptly ended. The Education Department stopped awarding grants for HSIs and many other minority-serving institutions last month, claiming the federal programs amounted to “discrimination.” Officials argued the programs are “unconstitutional” because they require institutions to enroll certain percentages of students from specific racial or ethnic backgrounds, among other criteria.

Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, president of Fresno State, said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the Finish in Five program now that the money is gone. In the past, the campus relied on about $5 million annually in HSI funding, which fueled a wide range of student supports and programs. The university was also expecting to receive $250,000 this fiscal year as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institution...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/institutions/minority-serving-institutions/2025/10/14/csu-campuses-reel-blow-hsi-funding.

From the LA Times: The University of Southern California on Thursday rejected the controversial education compact the Trump administration offered it and eight other schools, saying it would undermine “values of free inquiry and academic excellence.” USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer, which would give priority research funding access to universities that agree to follow the president’s mostly conservative vision of higher education. His letter, which USC provided to The Times, was addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and said that the compact “raises a number of issues worthy of further discussion within both higher education and our nation.”

...White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement that universities “funded by American taxpayers should absolutely serve the national interest.” “As long as they are not begging for federal funding, universities are free to implement any lawful policies they would like,” she said. “However, the notion that universities should benefit from taxpayer money without responsibilities in return is terribly misguided.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-16/usc-rejects-trump-education-compact.