In 2025-2026, the California State University system will face a proposed $143.8 million reduction to its General Fund instead of $375.2 million, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision summary released this morning.
“The May Revision maintains the planned deferral of the 2025-26 Compact investment of $252.3 million, representing a five-percent base increase in the fourth year of the Compact, to 2027-28,” the summary said.
The California Faculty Association released a statement last week that said “This revision is particularly significant for faculty, staff, and students, as it will determine funding allocations to the CSU. CSU management has used the specter of a state budget shortfall to severely and prematurely cut programs and initiate layoffs for the better part of a year.”
According to the summary, the CSU serves approximately 454,000 undergraduate and graduate students across 23 campuses and awarded more than 125,000 degrees in 2023-2024.
In a University Budget Committee meeting at the end of March, San Francisco State University officials voted to plan for a 5% reduction instead of a 7.95% cut to the CSU’s funding. The 3% reduction is lower than the “best-case scenario” of a 4% cut presented at the meeting.
SFSU President Lynn Mahoney shared her reaction.
“While any cut in CSU funding is never good news, especially as mandatory costs continue to increase, we are relieved the deeper, proposed 7.95% cut is not part of the current budget proposal,” Mahoney said. “There is still important work to do across the system — advocating for the CSU and making our value and importance to the state clear as we still face a large budget gap. And we must continue to plan for budget cuts. On our campus, our years-long process to align our budget with current enrollment and state support will continue. We will share more details about the budget once it is finalized and the CSU sends us our annual budget memo.”
Both the CSU and the University of California systems will maintain a 5% deferral of 2025-2026 compact investment to 2027-2028 — $252.3 million at the CSU and $240.8 million at the UC.
The UC will also face a 3% reduction instead of the originally proposed 7.95% — a $129.7% cut instead of $396.6 million.
In addition, “The May Revision also maintains the planned 2025-26 deferral of $31 million to offset revenue reductions associated with the replacement of 902 nonresident undergraduate students enrolled at three campuses with an equivalent number of California resident undergraduate students, from 2025-26 to 2027-28,” the summary said.
Also, the UC will receive an increase of $1.8 million one-time General Fund to support First Star Youth Cohorts at UC campuses.
This comes after months of activism across the state, including a protest in San Francisco during the Day of Action for Higher Ed in April.
