{"id":136299,"date":"2026-01-16T15:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136299\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T15:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:31:09","slug":"newsom-shocked-by-ccas-abrupt-closure-after-20m-state-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136299\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom shocked by CCA\u2019s abrupt closure after $20M state grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students and faculty of California College of the Arts weren\u2019t the only ones shocked by the abrupt announcement<\/a> Tuesday that San Francisco\u2019s oldest art school would be closing and its campus taken over by Vanderbilt University. <\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who caught flak from the press and lawmakers last year after securing $20 million in the state budget for CCA, was also caught off guard. <\/p>\n

In text messages reviewed by The Standard, Newsom wrote that he \u201cHad no clue\u201d and was given \u201cno heads up\u201d about the 119-year-old CCA\u2019s dissolution, which was announced in an email to students and faculty by CCA president David Howse.<\/p>\n

In an interview on Wednesday, The Standard asked Howse if he had notified the governor about the closure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been in touch with the governor\u2019s office, and we\u2019ll continue to keep in conversation with him as we go through this transition,\u201d Howse said, adding he had not spoken directly with Newsom. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for CCA said Howse notified the governor’s office of the closure on Monday, the day before the news was announced publicly, and has a meeting scheduled with Newsom\u2019s office next week.<\/p>\n

Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

When Newsom initially proposed providing $20 million to the private arts college, lawmakers balked because of the state\u2019s precarious budget situation. CCA was the only private college to receive state funds this year. In California, funding private colleges is not within the state\u2019s scope of responsibility and has been done very rarely.<\/p>\n

All four Democrats on an education finance budget subcommittee voted against the governor\u2019s request. Sen. Scott Wiener backed Newsom\u2019s proposal. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that this was such a tough budget year, it doesn\u2019t make sense to me why we are giving $20 million to a private college,\u201d Assembly Education Chair Al Muratsuchi told Politico (opens in new tab)<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m sure the California College of the Arts provides worthwhile educational programs, but our first priority should be to support our public universities, especially when the Trump administration is defunding public higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Student Aid Commission for California\u2019s nonpartisan legislative analyst\u2019s office also recommended rejecting the grant, noting that California State University campuses were also struggling and pointing to recent state grants and private donations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThough we recognize CCA\u2019s difficult financial situation, it is not the only campus in the state facing budget challenges,\u201d read the recommendation. \u201cGiven\u00a0supporting private schools is not part of the state\u2019s core mission, we recommend rejecting this proposal.<\/p>\n

Prior to the $20 million grant, the\u00a0state provided $2.5\u00a0million from the general fund in the 2024-25 budget to support CCA, which the school used to fund scholarships to aid enrollment growth.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Newsom proposed the $20 million grant, $45 million in donations came in \u2014 half from the Jen-Hsun & Lori Huang Foundation and the rest matched by private donors. The contribution by the Nvidia CEO\u2019s foundation was the largest donation in the school\u2019s history by $5 million.<\/p>\n

Newsom previously defended his decision to include the additional CCA funding in the state budget. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when Donald Trump is attacking the humanities, this is a simple choice: let the last remaining nonprofit arts college in San Francisco die, or step in to save it,\u201d Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon told Politico in May. \u201cThe governor is choosing to save it \u2014 and in doing so, protecting what makes California, California: our creative economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time the state gave money to private colleges was $50 million to the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in 2021 to support the construction of a new building that is allowing the university to develop and expand a medical school, and $5 million in 2022 to support an effort by the California Indian Nations College to pursue accreditation. <\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of those appropriations were for specific purposes that have an obvious statewide interest,\u201d stated a committee staff report (opens in new tab)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students and faculty of California College of the Arts weren\u2019t the only ones shocked by the abrupt announcement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[67820,37145,15,457,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-136299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california-college-of-the-arts","tag-california-state-budget","tag-education","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}