Riverside Community College District Chancellor Wolde-Ab Isaac said at a Sept. 16 Board of Trustees meeting that California is stepping up to fill in budget gaps created by cuts in federal aid to Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
Chancellor for California Community Colleges (CCC) Sonya Christian took a survey of the 116 Community Colleges in Calif. and found 90% of them are Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
“Still, she doesn’t want anyone to panic,” Isaac said.
The CCC can use a one-time $60 million Student Support Block Grant to the California state budget for 2025-2026 to offset the impacts of the U.S. Department of Education cuts to HSI funding.
The cuts to federal HSI funding were announced last month by DOE Secretary Linda McMahon in response to a U.S. Solicitor General’s determination declaring HSI programs violate the Fifth Amendment.
“The Department agrees that the racial quotas in the HSI programs are unconstitutional,” said McMahon in her Sept. 2025 press release. “Grant recipients will be notified today that existing discretionary awards will be non-continued.”
Whereas the announcement and notification were to be made immediately, the press release doesn’t specify when precisely the money stops.
The “termination” of a grant occurs upon receipt of a termination letter. The funds are immediately cut off and subject to recovery by the federal government, according to the DOE website on grant discontinuation and termination processes.
The “non-continuance” of a grant—such as Norco College’s five-year HSI grant awarded in 2024 for their Échale Ganas program—means the funds stop at the end of the current year’s budget period, even if it was a multi-year grant.
McMahon uses the “non-continuance” language in her press release, so RCCD colleges will likely have until the end of the federal fiscal year in Sept. 2026 to spend their remaining funds and close out their HSI projects.
The district will also be losing access to STEM grants for Moreno Valley College and RCC.
Moreno Valley College’s STEM Talent Gap Project is a partnership with UC Riverside, CSU San Bernardino and UC Berkeley to promote the transfer of Hispanic and low-income STEM students to 4-year universities.
This was RCCD’s largest HSI grant, totaling $9.6 million, but the majority of that has already been used up, Isaac told the Board during their Sept. 16 meeting.
RCC’s STEM grant is for their Inclusive Opportunities for Nurturing STEM Success program meant to improve Hispanic and other low income and first-generation student performance in the STEM disciplines, by training instructors to redesign classes and teach with equity-minded and evidence-based practices, according to the grant application.
Both of these STEM programs have been receiving HSI funding since applying in 2021.
“All told, this cancellation will lose RCCD $5.8 million,” said Isaac.
While not an insignificant number on its own, $6 million is still one small part of the $180 million District budget and HSI funds are just a few of all federal funding sources for the district.
The financial impact may not be severe for RCCD as a whole, but this re-purposing will have greater impacts on smaller institutions and those whose state governments may not be filling in the difference.
Whatever the timeline for these funds ending, the Trump administration’s end game is still the same. The DOE was planning $350 million in discretionary funds for MSI’s in 2025 and will now re-allocate that money to other priorities of the administration.
