NBLC Work Plan Priority - Workforce Development/Education
Improving student outcomes, and matching skills to job requirements for ALL students in the North Bay are priority focus areas for NBLC because education is crucial to the future of California. It is the best place to invest, to reap economic, social, public health, and environmental benefits. NBLC seeks to provide more career technical education, more focus on closing the achievement gap, greater college access, and more support for higher education. Our students are competing for the jobs of the future with students from all over the world. We need to ensure that the government is making education their top investment and elevate public education to the top of the rankings.
The US Department of Education announced earlier this month that it is ending a grant program for Hispanic-Serving Institutions and several similar programs, a decision expected to sap funding from California colleges and universities that are eligible for extra federal dollars because they enroll high numbers of Latino students.
According to EdSource, Campuses earn a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) designation by having an undergraduate student body that is at least 25% Latino. California has 167 such institutions, more than any other state, including five University of California campuses, 21 California State University campuses and most of the state’s community colleges. The designation allows those colleges to apply for the grants, which are competitive and not guaranteed to all HSIs. Together, California institutions have received more than $600 million in HSI grants since the program’s inception in 1995. Several of those colleges and universities are located in the North Bay including Sonoma State University, Napa Valley College, Santa Rosa Junior College, College of Marin and Dominican University of California.
The EdSource article continues, “CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a statement that ending the HSI grant program “will have an immediate impact and irreparable harm to our entire community.” CSU campuses have used grants to help more students graduate faster, increase the number of low-income students in STEM majors and even train faculty in culturally responsive pedagogy.
“Without this funding, students will lose the critical support they need to succeed in the classroom, complete their degrees on time, and achieve social mobility for themselves and their families,” she said.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said grants for HSIs and other minority-serving institutions “discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” and called them unconstitutional.
“The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas and will continue fighting to ensure that students are judged as individuals, not prejudged by their membership of a racial group,” McMahon added in a statement.
In total, the department said it will hold back $350 million in grant funding that was budgeted for fiscal year 2025. Most of that would have gone to HSIs, but some of it also would have been allocated to grant programs for colleges enrolling high numbers of Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiian students, Asian American students and Black students. “