California colleges on edge over suit challenging funds for Latino-serving campuses

Each year, most of California’s public colleges and universities are eligible for extra federal funding for a simple reason: They enroll high numbers of Latino students.

The federal government sets aside millions of dollars in grants annually for colleges it classifies as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, a designation earned by having an undergraduate student body that is at least 25% Latino. In total, California universities and community colleges have received more than $600 million in HSI grants since federal funding for the program began in 1995.

California, with its large Latino population, has the most HSI campuses in the nation — 167, or more than a quarter of the 602 HSIs in the country. That includes five of University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses, all but one of California State University’s 22 campuses, and the majority of the state’s community colleges.

But now, federal funding for the campuses is threatened by a lawsuit brought by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that successfully sued Harvard to end affirmative action in admissions.

The suit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, alleges the criteria to become an HSI are unconstitutional and discriminatory against other ethnic groups and that all colleges serving low-income students should be allowed to apply for the grants currently available to HSIs “regardless of their ability to hit arbitrary ethnic targets.”

Colleges are eligible for the HSI designation if they sustain Latino enrollment of at least 25% for two years and at least half of their students are low-income. The designation allows them to apply to the competitive grant program. The money is meant to be spent on programs that could benefit all students, not just Latino students, proponents said.

The HSI grants have allowed many California campuses to improve their student support services, add counseling and student retention programs and provide faculty training on how to teach students from diverse backgrounds.

“A lot of these campuses depend on HSI funds, and with that potentially being stripped, there is going to be a loss of vital infrastructure,” said Cristian Ulisses Reyes, a graduate student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he has been part of an effort to help that campus earn HSI designation by next year.

Supporters of HSIs have been anticipating a challenge to the program since President Trump returned to office and ordered an end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“So this lawsuit feels like a culmination of all those fears,” said Deborah Santiago, chief executive of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit focused on the success of Latino students in higher education.

The lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon as defendants. It’s not clear if the department will fight the lawsuit. The Department of Education did not return a request for comment.

Edward Blum, a conservative activist and president of Students for Fair Admissions, said in an email that the explicit Latino enrollment threshold requirement for HSI designation is, in his view, illegal.

“That means otherwise qualified institutions are denied access to millions in federal support solely because they lack the designated racial mix,” he said. “That’s racial preference disguised as education policy.”

As an HSI, Cal State L.A. is eligible for extra federal funding.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

As the lawsuit works it way through the court system, Santiago said she expects that grant applications will continue for at least this year and institutions that have unspent HSI funds can continue to use them.

Cal State Channel Islands recently held its 2025 Sí Se Pudo Recognition Ceremony, an annual graduation celebration hosted on campus. Achieving and maintaining the HSI designation has likely helped the campus recruit Latino students over the years, said Jessica Lavariega Monforti, university provost.

“Students are savvy today and they want to know what programs are available to support their success,” she said.

The campus, since 2010, has received $42 million in HSI-related funding, which includes National Science Foundation grants for which HSIs are eligible to apply.

One of the programs, called the CSUCI Initiative for Mapping Academic Success, launched campus-wide in 2022 and aims to help students who are struggling academically. Students meet in weekly workshops with faculty to get back on track. So far, retention for students in the program is 7% higher than their peers, Lavariega Monforti said.

The majority of students who have participated are Latino, but like many initiatives funded by HSI grants, it is not exclusive to Latino students.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is trying to earn its own HSI designation. Last fall, Latino enrollment at the campus hit 25% for the first time.

If the campus becomes an HSI next year, every CSU campus would have the designation.

Across UC, five of the system’s nine undergraduate campuses are HSIs: Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. Another, Davis, achieved eligibility last fall by crossing the 25% threshold of Latino enrollment. UC hopes for every campus to eventually have the designation, including UCLA and UC Berkeley.

Reyes, the San Luis Obispo graduate student, who also earned his undergraduate degree there, is hopeful that the HSI designation will still exist by the time the campus is eligible to apply. He helped launch the campus’ push for an HSI designation while working in the Office of Diversity & Inclusion.

Reyes is a first-generation college student and said connecting with other Latino staff and students helped him find his way and succeed on the campus.

He first enrolled as a biology major, but was failing classes and on academic probation in his first year. Then he met with a counselor who happened to be Latina and helped inspire him to change his major. He also joined the Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, a Latino fraternity that he said became the “backbone” of his time on the campus.

But after learning of the lawsuit, he’s worried the campus might never get to that point.

“It kind of felt like attacks were inevitable to happen, but actually seeing that was frightening and worrisome for me,” he said.

Burke is a reporter for EdSource, a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism organization covering education in California.