The California State University plans to support the current state budget proposal, which allocates strong funding for Cal State schools during the 2026-2027 academic year. Yet, with California’s current economic instability, receiving all that funding is not guaranteed.
Mark Martin, assistant vice chancellor of budget planning and advocacy, noted the uncertainty of state funding.
“There’s never enough state funding to meet all the legislative interests,” Martin said. “[The California legislature] will have to be making decisions about where to spend money, including how much to spend on the [Cal State system]. That’s where we are right now.”
Next school year’s state funding proposal increases the Cal State system’s general fund support by 7%, resulting in a $366 million increase. However, the Legislative Analyst Office, a nonpartisan group that analyzes the state budget each year, recommends that the governor decrease the proposed Cal State funding to account for California’s overall budget deficits.
For the current 2025-2026 academic year, the Cal State system faced a 3% reduction, which resulted in a $144 million loss in state funding, a cut for which the Cal State system is actively making up.
The Cal State system is currently bringing state legislators to campuses, hosting briefings on resources the Cal State system needs, posting on social media about the Cal State system’s impacts and conducting an economic impact report, all in an effort to show lawmakers that the Cal State system needs its funding.
Whether the Cal State system receives this funding or not, the public school system has worked to increase its own revenue. The Cal State system plans to further increase enrollment and tuition to boost revenue over the next few years, both efforts that directly impact Cal Poly students.
Juggling funding with enrollment
The Cal State system is currently in an agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom that provides Cal State funding in exchange for the Cal State system increasing its general enrollment. Campuses that have increased their enrollment, such as Cal Poly, which plans to increase enrollment to 25,000 by 2030, benefit from more funding. Each Cal State campus has its own budget, which accounts for the money provided by the Cal State system.
However, with an increased enrollment also comes the question of how Cal Poly and other Cal States will accommodate more students.
“When we enroll more students, we hire more faculty, we commit more student services. And these are ongoing costs, not one-time costs, that are challenged when we have a fiscal year like we did last year,” said Patrick Lenz, Cal State interim executive vice chancellor and chief financial officer.
Lenz explains that the 3% reduction from the state budget challenges the Cal State system’s mission to provide more money for student and faculty resources as enrollment increases. Lenz notes that the Cal State system is cautious about the system’s next steps in enrollment, considering they do not know the next governor’s goals regarding higher education funding.
“I say, as CFO, we want to ensure that we have funding to have the faculty and services so that [students] can get a quality education and graduate in a timely fashion,” Lenz said.
Where does the money go?
This school year, about 50% of the Cal State budget goes towards paying professors and Cal State staff, which the Cal State system typically spends most of its budget on.
The current state funding proposal for the Cal State system would restore the about $144 million that they did not receive last year, along with providing more funding. In its 2026-2027 budget plan, the Cal State system notes if they received additional money, they would spend the majority of that money on enrollment growth and further staff compensation.
They plan to allocate about $60 million for enrollment growth and about $177 million for staffing if the current budget proposal gets passed.
The majority of mandatory costs, which are costs the Cal State system plans to pay no matter the amount of that state funding they receive, would go towards financial aid, which receives about $60 million, and faculty compensation, which gets about $160 million.
Besides advocating for more state funding, the Cal State system is also advocating that the California lawmakers agree to fund bonds supporting student research and the education housing crisis.
The May Revise is May 14, which is when Gov. Newsom listens to lawmakers and legislative analysts’ input to modify the budget before its final approval. He will finalize the budget in June.
