The 2026-27 Instructionally Related Activities funding for a significant number of campus organizations, including the Daily Titan, has been cut by 40% to 60%. 

According to the awards letter from Academic Affairs, Cal State Fullerton’s IRA committee received a record number of requests, totalling to a projected $7.8 million. The total IRA fee revenue for the 2025-26 year totals to approximately $4.2 million. 

In the 2024-25 academic year, the Daily Titan received $119,900. The same amount was received for the 2025-26 academic year. In the 2026-27 IRA awards letter released March 16, the publication received $59,055 — reducing funding by over 50%. 

“This cycle saw a record number of proposals (140) and total funding requested (approximately $7.8 million), far exceeding available resources,” the letter reads. “Because total funding requests for Quartiles 1-3 exceeded the available budget, the Committee applied a tiered reduction model: Quartile 1 at 60%, Quartile 2 at 50%, and Quartile 3 at 40% of each program’s funding limit.” 

The quartile placements per organization are determined by a rubric which is evaluated on the first IRA meeting of every year. The governance document for the CSUF IRA committee notes that the rubric is “considered a procedural document and may be reviewed and amended by a majority vote at any time prior to the call for proposals.”

The 2026-27 rubric has not yet been released. As of 2010, a student-approved referendum dictates, after the administrative fee, 36% of the total IRA fee be allocated to Titan Athletics, with the rest available for distribution to all other IRA programs. 

Of the $4.2 million available, 32%, approximately $1.3 million, was automatically allocated to Titan Athletics. This leaves $2.4 million to be distributed among academic programs, according to Micheal McAlexander, the acting chair of the College of Communications, the college’s representative in the IRA committee and the publisher of the Daily Titan. 

While a significant portion of the Daily Titan’s funding comes from IRA awards, compensation for the Editor-in-Chief does not.