Sharp budget cuts at California State University, but one campus in Southern California is suffering even more

Over the summer, California State University officials informed campuses of the bad news: a drop in state funding and enrollment would mean a $1 billion cut.

Now the faculty says that the impact of these cuts is felt more among teachers than among other employees.

Lecturers are university faculty who teach part-time or full-time, but do not receive the benefits or job protections that permanent teachers do. Teachers often have the same types of degrees as permanent teachers. She too make up the majority of CSU faculty.

The number of classes teachers teach depends on the needs of university departments, and during economic downturns they are usually the first to be told that their services will not be needed.

How teachers are influenced

Last year was a very good year for California State University lecturer Dmitri Seals from Los Angeles.

“I received the Outstanding Lecturer Award for Cal State LA in 2023,” Seals said.

For the past six years, he had been teaching about the sociology of race, gender, and inequality, as well as projects aimed at closing the gap in income and digital inequality.

“I was so deeply honored by (the award) and I saw it as an opportunity to expand my work in teaching,” he said.

But about six months after the fanfare and recognition faded, his department gave him bad news.

“(I) was definitely disappointed when I learned that I would not be teaching in the fall of 2024,” Seals said.

The classes he had taught for years were not available to teach, he said. His higher-ups later offered him fewer classes to teach subjects he had not previously taught; Seals turned it down and decided to focus on it projects to increase entrepreneurship and other economic opportunities funded by municipal grants.

Cal State LA now has 82 fewer faculty members than it did at this time last year, a university spokesperson said. They added that the number is preliminary and could change.

Cal State LA isn’t the only campus seeing declining enrollment. The number of students at the Dominguez Hills campus was down nearly 8% in 2023 compared to the previous year, while the San Bernardino campus saw a decline of nearly 5% during the same period.

From one campus to another

Debito Beamer taught political science at Cal State LA for six years. He said about a year ago, administrators told him and other teachers to brace for budget cuts. He didn’t know how bad it would get.

“Then May comes along and they say, ‘Guess what? Cutbacks. We’re not going to give you lessons,” he said.

As he scrambled to find work, he discovered that CSULB and other Cal State campuses, unlike Cal State LA, were hiring.

“This semester I am teaching 400 students, 22.5 units,” said Beamer, who is now teaching primarily at Cal State Long Beach this semester.

Beamer’s experience sheds light on the various impacts the CSU cuts are having on the 23 campuses in the university system.

Amid budget cuts, some campuses are growing

At CSU Long Beach, there are 1,730 faculty members this month – 60 more than a year ago. A university spokesperson said there are eight fewer tenure-track faculty.

California State University, Northridge is offering 6,407 classes this semester; that is 180 more than a year ago, according to university figures. CSULB is offering 210 more classes this semester than a year ago.

“There was a conscious effort on behalf of the university and its leadership to ensure that we could protect what happens in the classroom as much as possible in education and students,” said CSUN spokesperson Carmen Chandler.

CSUN has twenty additional teachers this year, which amounts to just under 1,300. Permanent faculty remained much the same.

It is unclear how serious the cuts are in the various departments. Universities do not publish faculty and class numbers by department, and there are other factors that influence those numbers year after year — “for example, changes in curriculum,” CSULB spokesman Jeff Cook said via email. “Enrollment shifts; retirements; the speed at which new hires can be made and the possibility of search failures; make time for service, research and scientific and creative activities.”

For now, some CSULB administrators are cutting back on supplies and other costs unrelated to salaries.

“We have to be very careful when purchasing equipment,” said Curtis Bennet, dean of CSULB’s college of science and mathematics. And that’s a big problem, he said, because of the university’s lab work.

Enrollment also affects budgets: more students means more tuition fees in the coffers. Cal State LA saw a 7.8% decline in enrollment in fall 2023, according to university data. During the same period, the university canceled more than 10% of its classes.

Population decline in California and COVID-19 has contributed to the recent decline in college enrollment in California. But campuses are affected in different ways.

At Cal State LA, two factors are critical: “Regional trends in college-age adults and – for this year – the federal trend financial aid processing delays for a campus that primarily serves Pell students,” said Cal State LA spokesperson Erik Hollins.

Enrollment at CSULB rose 3.3% and nearly 1% at CSUN during that period.

More cuts are coming

By most accounts, CSU also plans to cut campus budgets in the 2025-2026 academic year.

What seems to emerge are different approaches and different effects depending on the campuses.

“I think the university-wide discourse has been defeatist around enrollment,” Seals said of the approaches he has heard at CSULA in recent academic years.

LAist requested an interview with a Cal State LA administrator to explain how the decline in faculty numbers is related to the decline in enrollment, but none was provided.

Seals said the conversations he heard and participated in before and after his Outstanding Lecturer Award contained no forward-looking plans or enthusiasm about serving college students who grew up in primarily working-class communities, even in dire financial straits.

“It was more like, ‘This is what’s going to happen to us,’ rather than, ‘This is what we’re going to do together,’” he said.

The ultimate impact, he said, is felt most by students just trying to get to graduation day.