After 15 years of operation, San Francisco State University’s Chinese Flagship Program will be discontinued on May 31, 2024. 

“An advisory body of the National Education Security Program that funds all national flagship programs made this decision after careful consideration of various factors, including enrollment trends, resource allocation, and strategic planning for the future of the Language Flagship Programs,” wrote Mia Segura, SFSU administrative analyst for research and sponsored programs, in an email to students on Thursday. 

The Chinese Flagship Program gives students the opportunity to take Chinese courses that act as prerequisites to a capstone project that allows students to study abroad in countries such as China and Taiwan. The program often gave out scholarships to students along with 1-on-1 tutoring sessions with international students. 

DaNia Stevenson, an SFSU alumna, is one of the students who enjoyed the services offered by the Chinese Flagship Program. Stevenson spent a summer abroad in Taiwan and received an $8,000 scholarship from the program, an experience she says she looks back on fondly. 

“I joined SFSU in 2020 because I saw that the Chinese Flagship program would give me the opportunity to learn more about [the] language, as well as give me the opportunity to study abroad in another country,” she said. “The passion that Professor Frederik Green and Mia Segura have for helping students is what got me through the ups and downs of learning a new language.” 

Frederik Green, the chair of SFSU’s modern languages and literature department, says the discontinuation of the program is a huge loss for the university.  

“It has been a fantastic, fantastic program,” Green said. “Many of our former students are doing amazing things.” 

Lila Holman is currently a Chinese Flagship major and says she’s been put in an awkward position by the program’s sudden discontinuation. 

“What we know of it so far is that we’ll still get funding for our summers abroad and our last chance to do the summer abroad officially will be 2025 — after that, we’re not entirely sure,” Holman said. 

Green says that the National Education Security Program has yet to give a reason why the program has been cut. However, Holman says that the government is more focused on supporting STEM professions. 

“They said they don’t have enough funding for 13 programs, so they cut the entirety of the programs on the West Coast,” Holman said. “We’re told that from 2024 to 2028, none of the West Coast schools can apply for official funding — the only schools available are completely on the other side of the country, which is weird [because]  it’s much farther from Asia.” 

“What we’re losing is a fantastic and supportive team of faculty who really care about spreading their love of the Chinese language and culture,” said Stevenson. “So much so that they have led this program and fought for it to give students the resources and support they need to help them succeed in this program.”

This article was corrected for accuracy