Last year, United For Medical Research, a coalition of research institutes, says $5.1 billion awarded to California universities and hospitals generated $13.8 billion in jobs, services and scientific discovery. “There’s a production of intellectual property that can turn into drugs or treatments, and so the returns are pretty huge,” said Yang. However, in March, the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk – also known as DOGE – reported it slashed $109 million in grants just to UCLA. Many more programs across the state remain in limbo. “If the federal government is going to pull back from scientific leadership and research, California should step up even more and lead the world,” said California Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). He introduced a bill that would help fill the funding gaps.
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by Denise Dador, ABC7.
Posted: May 2nd, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A week after restoring foreign students’ legal status, immigration officials detailed plans for a new policy granting unprecedented leeway to terminate their residency. It could foreshadow a new round of deportation efforts… “I’m talking to international students who are currently in the U.S., to international students who’ve been admitted to study in the U.S. starting in the fall, and they’re asking, ‘Will we be able to complete our degree program?’” she said. “The answer is that it’s unclear.”
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by Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: May 2nd, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
European governments have sought to bolster their universities’ efforts to recruit international researchers, amid signs that an expected exodus in U.S.-based scholars is beginning. On April 23, Norway’s education ministry announced the creation of a $9.6 million initiative, designed by the Research Council of Norway, to “make it easier to recruit experienced researchers from other countries.” … Last week, the French ministry of higher education and research launched the Choose France for Science platform, operated by the French National Research Agency.
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by Emily Dixon, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: May 1st, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
UC Berkeley faculty have called on University of California President Michael Drake to protect political speech and academic freedom across the state’s premier higher-education system and challenge the Trump administration’s “unprecedented attack” on higher education. UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate, comprised of campus faculty, approved the resolution last week… The faculty resolution insists that the University of California and UC President Drake challenge “illegal demands” by the federal government rather than accept them… The resolution also demands UC fund legal aid for students and scholars who have had their visas revoked.
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by Molly Gibbs, The Mercury News.
Posted: May 1st, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Rufo is the conservative activist who designed the administration’s attack on the “money, power, and status” enjoyed by Columbia, Harvard, and other top-ranked universities. He wants to cut the number of students at four-year colleges in half. It’s not clear if the administration will go that far — they may be satisfied by winning headlines at the expense of the Ivy League. But the government has more ambitious goals than its enumerated demands. That’s why, despite conceding to federal demands, Columbia has not gotten its funding back. The more universities concede, the more the administration will demand. The conservative critique of higher education is exaggerated and distorted, and these kinds of purported solutions are dangerous.
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by James Kvaal, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: April 29th, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Pratheepan Gulasekaram of the University of Colorado, said Trump’s Department of Homeland Security “is acting as though they are unbounded by congressional laws and can simply remove people at their discretion. This should scare all Americans — citizens, green card holders and student visitors.” Kevin Johnson, immigration law professor and former dean of the UC Davis law school, said he is concerned the Trump administration’s actions could discourage prospective students from applying to American universities in the future. “It’s going to have an impact on students coming, impact on universities in paying revenues, and that means there’s likely to be fewer foreign scholars who decide to come to the U.S. or stay after they’ve gotten a degree here,” he said.
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by Anna Bauman, St. John Barned-Smith, Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: April 9th, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Berg said the NIH’s justification that it can terminate a grant because it no longer “effectuates agency priorities” will “almost certainly” be litigated. “When a grant is awarded to a university, there are terms and conditions that go with the grant. It’s basically a legal contract,” he said. “The question of whether the rationale they’re giving is actually legal is very much an open question. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that the great majority of the terminations that have been done are in fact legal.” … A federal judge in Massachusetts has also enjoined the NIH’s recent guidance to cap the amount of money it sends to institutions to cover indirect research costs after a cavalry of Democratic attorneys general, institutions and trade associations argued in a lawsuit that the plan is “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the APA.
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by Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: April 2nd, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Every year, maintenance costs for University of California and California State University campuses total a combined $1.5 billion. But those repairs don’t always get made. The unpredictable nature of the state’s budget means there isn’t always enough money to make all the necessary fixes. State revenue has been sporadic, with hundreds of millions some years and no money in others. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget does not include any money for repairs, known as deferred maintenance, or other infrastructure projects. Absent a long-term funding plan, the deferred maintenance backlog has grown to an estimated $9.1 billion for the University of California and $8.3 billion for Cal State University as of the 2023-24 school year, driven by aging buildings and increasing costs for labor and parts.
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by Victoria Mejicanos, Matthew Reagan and Mercy Sosa, CalMatters.
Posted: April 1st, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Facing state budget cuts and threats to federal funding by President Donald Trump, the University of California announced an indefinite systemwide hiring freeze Wednesday. The 10-campus university will also eliminate diversity statements in any hiring processes following direction from the federal Department of Education to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs… Davis Faculty Association Chair Jesse Drew said that the university is already critically understaffed and that the hiring freeze will affect every aspect of the university — including research, class sizes, cuts to class offerings, infrastructure and the availability of teaching assistants. ”It affects every single aspect of how we can fulfill our obligation to enhance higher education in California,” he said.
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by Nicole Nixon, Jennah Pendleton, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: March 20th, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The cuts to the department’s staff will cause a delay in “nearly every aspect” of the K-12 education in their states, the attorneys general said in their suit. Therefore, the coalition is seeking a court order to stop what it called “policies to dismantle” the agency, arguing that the layoffs are just a first step toward its destruction. “All of President Trump’s executive actions are lawful, constitutional and intended to deliver on the promises he made to the American people,” a White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said.
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by Hurubie Meko and Troy Closson, The New York Times.
Posted: March 13th, 2025, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
