Michael Burke and Amy Dipierro for EdSource
Originally published September 10, 2025
TOP TAKEAWAYS
- The White House plans to cut about $350 million in grant funding that would have supported minority-serving institutions, including colleges with high numbers of Latino students.
- In California, there are 167 Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which have received more than $600 million in HSI grants over the past 30 years.
- The leader of the 22-campus California State University system said the cuts would cause “irreparable harm” to campuses.
The U.S. Department of Education said Wednesday it is ending a grant program for Hispanic-Serving Institutions and several similar programs, a decision expected to sap funding from California colleges and universities that are eligible for extra federal dollars because they enroll high numbers of Latino students.
Campuses earn a Hispanic-Serving Institution designation by having an undergraduate student body that is at least 25% Latino. California has 167 such institutions, more than any other state, including five University of California campuses, 21 California State University campuses and most of the state’s community colleges. The designation allows those colleges to apply for the grants, which are competitive and not guaranteed to all HSIs. Together, California institutions have received more than $600 million in HSI grants since the program’s inception in 1995.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a statement that ending the HSI grant program “will have an immediate impact and irreparable harm to our entire community.” CSU campuses have used grants to help more students graduate faster, increase the number of low-income students in STEM majors and even train faculty in culturally responsive pedagogy.
“Without this funding, students will lose the critical support they need to succeed in the classroom, complete their degrees on time, and achieve social mobility for themselves and their families,” she said.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said grants for HSIs and other minority-serving institutions “discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” and called them unconstitutional.
“The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas and will continue fighting to ensure that students are judged as individuals, not prejudged by their membership of a racial group,” McMahon added in a statement.
In total, the department said it will hold back $350 million in grant funding that was budgeted for fiscal year 2025. Most of that would have gone to HSIs, but some of it also would have been allocated to grant programs for colleges enrolling high numbers of Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiian students, Asian American students and Black students.
In California’s Central Valley, the State Center Community College District’s four campuses — Clovis, Fresno City, Madera and Reedley — are each HSIs and have received millions of dollars in grant funding to support a range of student services.
Reedley, for example, has earned nearly $2 million in HSI grants that have funded initiatives including career counseling, transfer support and dual enrollment.
When the Department of Education announced Wednesday that it plans to cut funding for HSI grants, “we weren’t surprised,” said Chancellor Carole Goldsmith.
“It was very saddening,” she said. “But it was something we thought may be coming.”
Because officials have anticipated federal funding cuts, Goldsmith said the district set aside $4 million in its 2025-26 budget to support programs that could be impacted by losses and another $12 million to support staffing. In the short term, that funding will protect any initiatives across the district that rely on HSI funding, Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith added that she expects the White House’s decision won’t be the final word on the grant program, saying she believes it could face legal challenges. “We are not sure if this is a presidential authority or if this authority rests with Congress,” she said.
The White House’s move to end grants for HSIs and other minority-serving institutions comes after a lawsuit was filed earlier this year challenging the HSI grant program.
The state of Tennessee and the anti-affirmative action organization Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuit in U.S. district court, arguing that the criteria to become an HSI are unconstitutional and that all colleges serving low-income students should be able to apply for the grants available to HSIs.
The U.S. Department of Justice later decided not to defend the program against the lawsuit, with U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer writing to House Speaker Mike Johnson in July that HSI programs “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”
Proponents of HSIs argue that the program and grant funding are not discriminatory because grants for HSIs are meant to be spent on initiatives that could benefit any student at the college, not just Hispanic students.
That’s the case across the 22-campus CSU system, according to García, the chancellor, who said in a statement that HSI grant funding “not only helps advance the CSU’s educational mission, but it also supports CSU’s efforts to carry out our core values of inclusive excellence, social mobility, authentic access to higher education and equity in all its dimensions.”
“The CSU remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring that all students continue to have access to affordable, high-quality higher education,” she added.
