California State Universities are facing millions in funding losses after the National Institutes of Health cut back its reimbursement for previously agreed-upon administrative costs.
These funding cuts endanger vital support and research systems that are essential to the program’s success, according to Jason Maymon, a Cal State spokesperson, as previously reported by the Attorney General of California.
“The research cuts have been traumatic for the students involved due to the uncertainty surrounding the future of their research,” said Sarah Keadle, an associate professor of Kinesiology and Public Health at Cal Poly, who had training grants affected by research cuts.
Keadle described how her grants “provide tuition support, stipend students working on research projects, professional development, support students post-grad, and more.”
U-Rise programs, one of the grants she worked on at Cal Poly, provided over $20 million in funding to 16 Cal State campuses. Keadle discussed how since losing that funding, there are no federal training opportunities available at any level, be it community colleges, four-year institutions or graduate school, etc.
The loss of these opportunities causes a significant training deficit for the upcoming generation of scientists, according to Keadle. This poses a challenge to scientific expertise in the future for California and the United States.
California’s Democratic senators recently introduced a plan to allocate $23 billion in funding for medical and scientific research that the Trump administration cut. SB-607 would establish a state equivalent of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), two of the largest institutional supporters of scientific and public health research in the country.
The proposed state equivalent of the NIH and NSF, called California Institute for Scientific Research, covers biomedicine, drug safety, vaccinations and climate change. It would provide funding and loans to UC’s, CSU’s and other California universities, as well as public and private institutions. To support research at this scale, senators are requesting $23 billion in bonds, which would be the biggest of its kind.
California recently surpassed Germany and Japan, becoming the fourth-largest economy in the world, as previously reported by BBC News. This success is fueled by scientific innovation, as $5.1 billion granted to hospitals and colleges in California last year produced $13.8 billion in services, jobs and scientific advancements, according to United For Medical Research. Given that for every $1 spent, the NIH generates $2.56 in economic development, California’s economy could benefit from this state initiative.
“California needs to lead, and we are already a leader on science,” state Senator Scott Wiener announcing his proposal, as previously reported by KQED. “We should double and triple down on that leadership and make California the absolute global epicenter of scientific research and discovery.”
Lawmakers won’t consider the bill until January, following the state’s annual recess. A supermajority of the legislature must approve the law before it can be put on the 2026 ballot. If put on the ballot, the initiative would just need a majority vote to pass, which Democrats currently have.