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Valley minority-serving colleges stand to lose millions in wave of federal cuts targeting DEI

Nikki Sanchez (right), a psychology major in her first semester at Modesto Jr. College waits outside the Extended Opportunity Programs & Services office in the student services building on Sept. 24, 2025.
Vivienne Aguilar / The Modesto Focus
Nikki Sanchez (right), a psychology major in her first semester at Modesto Jr. College waits outside the Extended Opportunity Programs & Services office in the student services building on Sept. 24, 2025.

This story was originally published by The Modesto Focus.

Universities and colleges in the San Joaquin Valley are preparing for a windfall of potential impacts following last month’s Department of Education announcement it’s cutting $350 million in discretionary funds from minority-serving institutions.

The government’s action is in line with President Donald Trump administration’s goal to eliminate any diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the federal level.

The cuts will impact all the not-for-profit, higher-education institutions in the San Joaquin Valley, from Stockton to Bakersfield – widely regarded as one of the nation’s most ethnically diverse regions. 

Data shows colleges across the Valley are set to lose roughly $6 million in total. That figure may be conservative, as some schools have yet to report their numbers.

Many of the grants are dispersed over several years, causing the final few payment cycles to end abruptly for various schools.

For example, at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, the federal government’s decision ended an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions grant of $1.8 million three years into its payment cycle. Nearly 20% of Delta students identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander.

Delta spokesperson Alex Breitler questioned what would happen next academic year without the grant.

Other colleges in the region who are directly feeling the effects of the reallocation of funds are: Merced College, which stands to lose $1.1 million, and $1.2 million at California State University, Bakersfield.

State Center Community College District reported it will lose anywhere from $2 to $3 million across three of its four campuses, including Fresno City College. Madera Community College, another of SCCCD’s campuses, is a recently recognized Hispanic-Serving Institution, and has not had the chance to apply for grants yet.

The college put the funds to use by hiring a program director and staff to support a learning community and center dedicated to AAPI students. The center is dedicated to the Asian and Pacific Islander community, but is open to all students.

The AAPI learning community offers counseling, tutoring and field trips for students to explore opportunities to transfer to universities.

“We are exploring multiple strategies while also waiting to see what will happen with potential litigation, so it’s too early to say what the ultimate outcome will be. But it’s safe to say we’re very disappointed in this action,” Breitler said.

It’s still unclear what the impact of the cuts will mean to the 10-campus University of California system. The UC Office of President released a comment via UC Merced spokesperson Alyssa Johansen to say the diversion of funds are “deeply concerning,” but officials did not elaborate further.

The university was advised by UC leadership not to provide exact data for the amount it is set to lose in HSI grants, according to Johansen.

What are Minority-Serving Institutions and how do schools qualify?

Public or private not-for-profit colleges with significant percentages of minority students enrolled can apply for federal minority-serving institution (MSI) designations.

There are nine colleges across the San Joaquin Valley region. All hold one or more federal minority-serving designation.

While the Trump administration’s termination notice encompassed all minority groups, leaders across community colleges, private and public universities, raised concerns over the potential losses to Hispanic-Serving Institutions, the most common designation in California.

Another frequent designation for the Valley is Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI).

In response to the cuts, some schools are keeping quiet in hopes to stay under the radar of the Trump administration, while others are more vocal about what they believe is discrimination against historically diverse populations.

HSI schools require a minimum of 25% of the student body to identify as Hispanic, while AANAPISI designations call for 10%.

Colleges across the region report closer to 60% of their students identify as Hispanic.

The designations themselves will remain, but the funding provided by the federal government will cease and “include both 2025 new awards and non-competing continuations,” according to the Department of Education.

The grants available to these institutions are designed to offer financial support for colleges to develop programs specifically for populations made up of historically marginalized communities without access to resources.

Federal grants, support can help spark homegrown passion

Of the nine colleges affected by the decision, two – the private institutions University of the Pacific and Fresno Pacific University – will not lose any funding. Neither applied for grants after receiving the designations.

At Stockton’s University of the Pacific, Mary Lomax-Ghirarduzzi, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, said the college uses its MSI designations to affirm the identities of current and prospective students. She said the value of the designations goes beyond any grant funding from the government.

“What it does communicate is a confidence to students from those communities and to families from those communities, that the university is not only committed to all students, but we have a capacity to both educate, train and prepare students for a culturally responsive and multicultural world,” Lomax-Ghirarduzzi said.

In communities across the Central Valley, Lomax-Ghirarduzzi said many people are entering college as veterans or first generation students who rely on the resources on campus to keep them going. She said MSI designations, and MSI grant-funded programs at other colleges, help these students gain the skills needed to uplift themselves and their family’s socioeconomic status.

“College-educated individuals have a capacity to not only want to serve their profession, but they want to serve in their community,” she said. “They want to give back. Many of the individuals will stay in (their county). They get engaged immediately in healthcare and public policy. They become entrepreneurs.”

Graduate students working as research assistants under Lomax-Ghirarduzzi say colleges’ cultural awareness in the Valley is a welcome push that helped them see themselves in higher education.

“We grew up being told we could be anything, even the president. For our generation, it’s kind of like this reckoning of having to reconcile with the fact that there is push forward and lots of pushback historically when it comes to equality for our communities. We grew up in a large era of forward progress. So like right now, this era is completely stripping our, I guess, reality,” said Arianna Williamson, first year graduate student in the communication department at UOP.

End of affirmative action caused ‘snowball effect’

The justification for cutting federal MSI dollars is a compounded result of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action.

In Modesto, education leaders say that initial decision has caused a “snowball effect” to what the Department of Education is doing now.

“The designation and the requirements of the program is not only for Latino students, but also for low-income students. It creates that bigger institutional change,” said Jose Rocha, dean of special programs at Modesto Junior College.

Grants are applied for with information gathered across surveys and listening sessions with students, staff and faculty, Rocha said. Once a college receives HSI funding, it is able to refocus efforts to both reach Hispanic students and improve campus conditions for all students.

Rocha was on track to use his expertise from his last role as science, technology, engineering and mathematics HSI director at the College of San Mateo, to build new programming on MJC campuses.

Before the announcement, he and his team had applied for a HSI grant that he felt confident would bring $2.5 million over five years in funding to the college.

Since the announcement that grant funds will be reallocated away from minority-serving institutions, MJC officials have had to rethink how to show support for their Hispanic students.

“The signage and murals and other places, identifiers. There’s that connection when it comes to the community and saying, ‘Okay, I belong here. This is my place. This is my community.’ And so it’s not to exclude anybody, but it’s just to include everybody in those conversations, in those places,” Rocha said.

The HSI grant would have been announced in October. The college planned to use it to hire staff to oversee programs in line with the school’s student equity plan. Now, MJC leadership is pivoting to asking private businesses in the community to invest in cultural programming instead.

Rachel Livinal, higher education reporter for The Merced Focus, contributed to this report.

Vivienne Aguilar is a reporter for The Modesto Focus, a project of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative.

Vivienne Aguilar is the health equity reporter for the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative, a nonprofit newsroom based in Merced, in collaboration with the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF).