solicitor general found it unconstitutional<\/a>, in a response to that lawsuit.<\/p>\nHow the cuts hit one college<\/p>\n
Chico State has roughly 13,000 students, about 38% of whom are Latino, according to federal data. Since earning the HSI designation a decade ago, the university has received roughly $26 million in grant funding, said Teresita Curiel, the university\u2019s director of Latinx equity and success.<\/p>\n
Among the programs being cut is Bridges to Baccalaureate, which provided undergraduate research opportunities and transfer student mentoring for Latino and low-income students in the behavioral and social sciences, and one called Destino that helped prepare STEM students for the workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to be successful as a university, we have to intentionally think about how we\u2019re going to support Latinx students \u2014 grant money or not,\u201d said Leslie Cornick, Chico State\u2019s provost, who is now working, with other campus leaders, to make up for lost funding.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Marquez, who manages the Bridges to Baccalaureate and Future Scholars programs, said that in the two years those grants have been active, more than 80 students have been paid to do research, lead summer orientation or serve as mentors to transfer students.<\/p>\n
![\"Lupe](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770117908_928_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Lupe Jimenez, who oversees the college\u2019s Destino program, says he tries to make Latino students feel welcome on campus and in his office.<\/p>\n
(Olivia Sanchez \/ The Hechinger Report)<\/p>\n
Ysabella Marin, a senior psychology major, said her research in the Future Scholars Program has focused on the impact of social media on men\u2019s body image.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, research was always something that was kind of scary, to be honest,\u201d Marin said. But she said she felt empowered by her experience \u2014 more confident, and more comfortable talking to professors. Now she wants to enroll in a master\u2019s degree program to study developmental psychology.<\/p>\n
At other colleges, leaders have been working to keep similar programs running.<\/p>\n
At Southwestern College in the San Diego area, college President Mark Sanchez said the school\u2019s leaders will not sacrifice a program that helps first-year students adjust to campus life. The college serves a bi-national community of students living in the United States and Mexico; many are the first in their family to go to college. Sanchez said the program has been extended to students in their second year. Instead of being funded with HSI grant money, Sanchez said the programs will be paid for by the college\u2019s general fund.<\/p>\n
Cal State Channel Islands has received roughly $40 million in HSI grant funding in the last decade, said Jessica Lavariega Monforti, the university\u2019s provost. Most of the money has gone toward programs to support the academic success of Latino and low-income students, she said.<\/p>\n
Among those being discontinued is one called Soar at CI, which in part strengthened transfer pipelines from nearby community colleges, she said. Students offered career mentoring to younger students, hosted a podcast and invited alumni back to campus to host workshops on career preparedness. Lavariega Monforti said that leaders will try to incorporate aspects of this program into other areas. <\/p>\n
At Chico State, Matthew Hernandez, a senior computer science major, enrolled in both a computer science boot camp, funded through Destino, and a calculus boot camp in the summer before his freshman year. He said he went from scoring 44\/100 before the boot camp to a near perfect score by the end.<\/p>\n
Data from the university show that students involved in such STEM support programs were more likely to stay enrolled after their first year \u2014 92% compared to 86% of their peers in similar majors who did not receive support. They were also more likely to graduate \u2014 63% within six years, compared to 58% of their peers without assistance.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1oz said he is not abandoning graduate school aspirations, despite limited funding opportunities due to the cuts. He said he plans to pay what he can out of pocket and apply for student loans to cover the rest.<\/p>\n
Sanchez writes for the the Hechinger Report<\/a>, which produced this story and is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As an undergraduate studying psychology at Chico State, Gabriel Mu\u00f1oz enrolled in a program that paid him to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,3759,9,8,78481,78483,11772,4110,78484,22058,14833,78485,78480,4263,4576,16502,46863,78482],"class_list":["post-161775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-college","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chico-state","tag-congressional-leader","tag-executive-director","tag-funding","tag-hsi-funding","tag-institution","tag-latino","tag-latino-adult","tag-latino-student","tag-money","tag-program","tag-rutgers-university","tag-sanchez","tag-summer-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161775","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=161775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kendall](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770117908_122_.jpeg\")
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