Governor Newsom's Budget Seeks to Transform Higher Education, Falls Short of Making College Affordable for All
The revised budget sets ambitious goals for the UC, CSU, and California Community College systems to increase college access, strengthen transfer, improve graduation rates, and close equity gaps, but misses opportunity to expand Cal Grants for low-income students across the state.
Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a $24 billion investment for higher education in his 2022 revised budget proposal, which cements his commitment to multi-year funding agreements with the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and California Community Colleges (CCC), but fails to set aside the funding necessary to adopt a Cal Grant Equity Framework that would further expand financial aid for 150,000 low-income California students.
 
The revised spending proposal for the UC, CSU, and CCC establishes ambitious and necessary targets in pursuit of an equally ambitious 70 percent college-attainment goal, including adding 22,000 more UC and CSU seats, strengthening transfer, increasing graduation rates, closing equity gaps and producing more graduates in high-demand professions. In exchange for five years of five percent growth in state funding, the three systems will be expected to report annually on their progress towards meeting those goals.
 
“We applaud Governor Newsom’s historic investments in our state’s colleges and universities,” said Michele Siqueiros, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity. “The multi-year funding agreements represent a tremendous opportunity to ensure funding stability, promote college and university collaboration, and make real progress towards serving more students, improving the transfer pathway, increasing graduation rates, and closing racial equity gaps.”
 
“We also appreciate the Governor’s commitment to increase college affordability and make progress on creating a debt-free path to college. However, as students struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we must remove additional barriers to financial aid eligibility, simplify the Cal Grant program, and expand access for low-income students and families. Adopting the Cal Grant Equity Framework – which will expand access for 150,000 more low-income Californians, including 95,000 Latinx students – may be the most important pandemic recovery and equity investment of the year,” Siqueiros added.
 
The budget fails to set aside the funding necessary to adopt a Cal Grant Equity Framework that would further expand financial aid for 150,000 low-income California students. In 2021, Governor Newsom made a significant down payment on expanding Cal Grant awards for community college students. While the 2022-23 budget proposes an increase of $515 million in ongoing support for the Middle Class Scholarship Program to help cover non-tuition costs for wealthier middle-income families, notably absent from the revised budget proposal is a commitment to further expand financial aid access for low-income students statewide and invest in a simplified Cal Grant process to the benefit of all prospective students and their families.
Key Higher Education Budget Highlights


Adopting a 21st Century Vision for Higher Education
● Continued commitment to an ambitious 70% college-attainment goal by 2030.
● Strengthened goals for the proposed multi-year higher education compacts for the UC and CSU, as well as the Road Map to California’s Future for CCCs, which include:
  • Expanding access to the UC and CSU by increasing California resident undergraduate enrollment by a combined total of more than 22,000 full-time equivalent students between 2023-24 and 2026-27, and ensuring CCC transfer students comprise a significant share of this enrollment.
  • Closing equity gaps in graduation rates for Pell Grant recipients, underserved students, disabled students, and their peers. 
  • Taking measurable steps toward offering every UC undergraduate a pathway for debt-free education by 2029-30.
  • Increasing intersegmental collaboration and data sharing to benefit students, including support for implementation of the Cradle-to-Career Data System.
Strengthening Student Pathways
● CCC Student Equity and Achievement Program: An increase of $25 million to support the Student Equity and Achievement Program.
● UC ASSIST: $1.5 million General Fund increase ($650,000 ongoing) to seamlessly integrate Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) institutions onto the ASSIST platform and provide prospective transfer students with information on course transferability.
● Investing historic funding increases for the CCCs, with a total of $375 million in ongoing investments to strengthen the Student-Centered Funding Formula and provide more funding stability for community college districts. 
● Continued commitment to funding implementation of key transfer reforms at the CCCs, including $65 million to implement AB 928 (Berman, 2021) and $105 million to implement common course numbering under AB 1111 (Berman, 2021).
● Continued commitment to establishing an integrated admissions platform between the UC, CSU, and CCC.
Keeping the College Dream Affordable
● Continued commitment to funding $100 million to support the community college Student Success Completion Grant Program
● Continued commitment to funding $20 million in one-time resources to provide emergency student financial assistance grants to eligible AB 540 students.

To read the official budget documents produced by the Department of Finance, click here.