California Democrats press Education Department to restore funds shifted away from Hispanic-serving colleges

A letter signed by both of California’s senators and four Bay Area House members argues the department had no authority to redirect mandatory grants Congress set aside for minority-serving institutions, a category that includes most of the state’s public campuses.

By Staff Reporter

California’s two senators and four Bay Area House members have joined a congressional coalition demanding that the Education Department reverse its decision to redirect federal money that Congress designated for Hispanic-serving and other minority-serving colleges, a dispute that weighs heavily on a state with more such campuses than any other.

The letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, led by Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and made public last week by her office and by Senator Alex Padilla of California, calls the department’s move “an illegal violation of Congress’ spending authority under the Constitution.” Senator Adam Schiff signed it, as did Representatives Mark DeSaulnier, Mike Thompson, Lateefah Simon and Kevin Mullin, whose districts span Contra Costa County, the North Bay, Oakland and the Peninsula, along with 11 other California House Democrats.

“ED does not have the unilateral authority to reallocate these funds,” the lawmakers wrote.

What the department did

On Sept. 22, the department announced what it called a “one-time” infusion of more than $174 million for historically Black colleges and universities and more than $61 million for tribal colleges, Inside Higher Ed reported. The department said the money came from programs that generally fund Hispanic-serving and other minority-serving institutions.

The money for historically Black colleges was drawn from a grant program meant to increase the number of Hispanic and low-income students in science, technology, engineering and math, and to build transfer agreements between two- and four-year schools, the publication reported. About $47.2 million of the tribal-college money came from programs for Asian American and Pacific Islander-serving, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving, and Native American-serving nontribal institutions.

Those programs are paid for with mandatory funding under the FUTURE Act, a bipartisan law that President Trump signed in December 2019. It permanently authorized $255 million a year, divided among seven grant programs, each with an amount set in statute. The lawmakers argue that structure leaves the department no room to move money between programs without new authorization from Congress.

The letter also faults the department for awarding the 2026 money a year earlier than usual. Because the funds remain available for two years, the lawmakers wrote, half of the money was not at risk of lapsing this year. “This administration unnecessarily reallocated half of these funds in order to put out a press release leading up to midterm elections,” they wrote.

The administration’s position

The administration’s legal rationale rests on a December 2025 opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded that grants for Hispanic-serving and several other categories of institutions are unconstitutional because eligibility depends on the racial or ethnic makeup of a college’s enrollment. A college generally qualifies as Hispanic-serving if at least 25 percent of its full-time undergraduates are Hispanic.

In July 2025, the solicitor general notified Speaker Mike Johnson that the Justice Department would not defend that threshold in a lawsuit brought by Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, writing that “the challenged provisions’ 25-percent racial quota violates the Constitution.” The lawmakers counter that “no court has found these programs that Congress has funded to be unconstitutional.”

The department told Inside Higher Ed that it had urged Congress to fix what it views as the programs’ constitutional problems and had worked with the White House budget office to find lawful uses for the money. In announcing the awards, Ms. McMahon said, “For nearly 200 years, HBCUs have been engines of opportunity in communities, advancing critical innovations and uplifting local industries across the nation.” No public response from the department to the letter had been reported as of Sunday.

The lawmakers took care not to criticize the recipients. “Increases in funding for HBCUs and TCCUs should not come at the expense of other critical institutions of higher education,” they wrote, referring to historically Black and tribal colleges.

Why California has the most at stake

The dispute is the latest stage of a fight that began in September 2025, when the department canceled discretionary grants for most minority-serving institutions and redirected $495 million to historically Black and tribal colleges.

California has 167 Hispanic-serving institutions, by far the most of any state, according to EdSource reporting republished by The Los Angeles Times. They include 107 of the state’s 116 community colleges and 21 California State University campuses. Within a year of the first cuts, community colleges had lost at least $20 million and CSU campuses an estimated $43 million, the report said.

In the North Bay, The Press Democrat reported last year that Santa Rosa Junior College stood to lose more than $10.5 million in Hispanic-serving grant money supporting three programs, that Napa Valley College held three such grants worth $10.8 million over several years, and that Sonoma State University would close a program that had been awarded nearly $3 million to steer Hispanic students into health, nursing and teaching careers.

San Francisco State University, which describes itself as both a Hispanic-serving institution and an Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander-serving institution, is the kind of campus that has drawn on both pools of money now in dispute.

What comes next

A letter carries no legal force, and the department is under no deadline to answer it. The issue could resurface in budget talks: the government is running on a stopgap spending measure through Dec. 11, and the lawmakers noted that Congress wrote a temporary, “albeit imperfect,” fix into this year’s appropriations law when discretionary money for the programs was at risk.

For California’s public colleges, the outcome will help determine whether counseling, tutoring and transfer programs that once ran on federal grants return, or whether campuses and the state keep covering the gap.