In March, former Chancellor Henry T. Yang announced that UC Santa Barbara departments would be seeking permanent budget reductions. Since then, several cuts have become apparent on campus, although the full effects of the reductions remain to be seen.
The Nexus asked nearly all academic departments and several units for student resources about how budget cuts were affecting them. Sarah Caulder / Daily Nexus
According to the announcement, 10-12.95% reductions from the previous year would be proposed across University units and departments due to state and federal budget cuts, alongside rising operational costs. Yang mentioned that these are longstanding circumstances, since all University of California (UC) campuses have been “working to ensure long-term financial stability to address budgetary challenges” since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have taken a number of prudent, short-term actions as part of a multi-year plan to minimize the impact to divisions, departments, and services,” Yang said in the announcement.
The Nexus asked nearly all academic departments and several units for student resources about how budget cuts were affecting them. Based on the information the Nexus gathered, some academic departments are still unsure of how they will be affected. Departments that rely on direct federal funding for research have dealt with the unpredictability of federal grants for several months. Regarding student services, several programs are reducing their budgets while aiming to preserve resources.
A department chair who wished to remain anonymous said that faculty and staff are “anxious” about the cuts. According to the chair, it is generally unknown when or how these cuts will affect specific departments at this time.
“There are a lot of uncertainties as to how severe the impact will be, ranging from impacts on student services to lecturer layoffs and cuts in TA positions for incoming grad students,” the department chair shared with the Nexus.
Lisa Blanco, business officer for the sociology department, said that “there’s been a [budget] pinch on campus for a really pretty long time.” Since sociology enrollment is fairly high, it has access to more resources compared to smaller departments.
Blanco said that, in anticipation of these cuts, the department hired four new faculty members. She said that funding cuts to academic departments may lead to less faculty in specialized areas and larger class sizes, although at this time the tangible effects remain uncertain.
“Campus wise, you’re going to have less faculty in these specialized areas, and students won’t be able to take as many classes that are unique, kind of nuanced. It’ll be more just the ones that get you the requirements and get you through and things like that,” Blanco, who graduated from the University in 1999 and has been working at UCSB since, said.
In March, former UC President Michael V. Drake announced a hiring freeze in light of federal and state budget cuts.
Blanco also pointed toward the loss of research grants and how that may decrease internship opportunities for students. In terms of how tighter budgets affect faculty and staff, Blanco said training and professional development could be impacted.
“Staff success is tied and linked with student success,” Blanco said. “When students have the support of different counselors and different advisors and all these different team players from the person who serves your meal in the dorm to your groundskeeper to the person who processes your degree, you want all of that to be running smoothly.”
According to Noozhawk, the University reduced custodial and groundskeeping services. Daily litter pickups were decreased to three times a week, but the service changes did not cause hour reductions for employees or terminations.
Piyusha Lotlikar, a doctoral candidate in organic chemistry at the Max Wilson Research Lab, focuses on treating diseases such as heart attacks and strokes with ruthenium-based compounds. She considers the United States a “research powerhouse” and said she was “shocked” by the cuts to federal research funding. She said that in order to cure cancer, research in all kinds of drug development is crucial.
“I think there’s a lot of speculation about what these silly scientists do in their labs every day on these seemingly silly sounding projects. But if you zoom out, I think there’s an application for almost every single one of those,” Lotlikar said.
While Lotlikar wasn’t able to provide specifics on the federal funding cuts, she said the “vast majority” of researchers and labs she knows are getting “a lot more scared to spend money” and do large-scale research.
Lotlikar said for her own projects, they’ve started taking measures to minimize costs. For example, when her lab purifies compounds, they collect pure material in test tubes, which she says are “pretty cheap” but are now being reused more often. She said this causes extra time and stress when having to clean the test tubes, which she equates to doing “an extra two hours of dish washing” every week.
“For the first time ever in my [doctorate], I started getting more and more questions about like, ‘Well, how much will this cost? What’s the cost estimate on this?’ Whereas before, we were kind of able to innovate more freely, and it was easier to get things done,” Lotlikar said.
Lotlikar said she’s known many international students who were unable to finish the projects they came to UCSB to do and therefore have left the country. She says she is “hopeful” that these budget cuts will serve as a “wake-up call” for people to realize that doctoral students are valuable members of the U.S. workforce.
“Putting our jobs at risk is really detrimental to the overall functioning of the University, especially on the teaching end. If students aren’t able to be employed as TAs for some amount of time, it puts a strain on the teaching resources of the University, which have also come under fire recently with some budget cuts,” Lotlikar said.
Lotlikar said there’s a lot of “uncertainty” regarding whether the funds will be released back to departments. While the Max Wilson Lab collected its annual disbursement and therefore can continue to work, she’s unsure whether this will continue next year. While she never planned to work in academia, she’s seen many of her colleagues struggling to find jobs post-graduation and are considering returning a postdoc, which she describes as a “not very viable option right now.”
“One of the fallback plans for people that wanted to go into the industry but couldn’t get a job immediately was to do a postdoc, and that option just does not seem very viable right now, which then does make me nervous, because if I’m unable to find a job anywhere in the U.S., then I would go look for postdoc, and that will inevitably be more competitive,” Lotlikar said.
Lotlikar hopes to see the University show more support for graduate students who find themselves without proper funding. She emphasized the importance of graduate students to ensure future generations are “academically competent” and have a quality education, which she says cannot be done if current students aren’t able to properly balance their workload.
At the federal level, Lotlikar wishes there was an understanding that “scientists and science are not the enemy.” According to her, cancer cells are “constantly evolving to evade chemotherapies,” meaning it’s important that each patient has as many medical options as possible.
“We are just people trying to do good things and make the world a little bit more habitable by virtue of disease research that goes towards saving lives and improving outcomes in clinical settings,” Lotlikar said. “I don’t think anyone is against the idea of having better treatments for if a parent, [or a] loved one gets sick.”
According to Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Miles Ashlock Burke, “every student affairs department is doing its part to reduce spending.” Burke said that most reductions will come from leaving positions unfilled and reducing discretionary costs such as food at events and supplies.
“Like many universities – and the broader economy – we’re feeling the effects of inflation and rising healthcare benefits costs. We’re facing these challenges head-on while staying true to our mission and our commitment to our programs, our staff, and especially our students’ success and well-being,” Burke said in a statement to the Nexus. “We’re working hard to limit disruptions, but some changes to services may be unavoidable.”
The Nexus has been reporting on budget reductions since the summer, with the first instance being when the physical therapy department closed in August. At the time, UCSB media spokesperson Kiki Reyes said that Student Health reviewed its services and determined local providers could provide those services.
In early September, the UCSB Library announced it would no longer be open 24/7, and would be closed from 1-8 a.m., as well as on University holidays due to the permanent budget reductions. Since then, the hours have been extended and other 24/7 spaces were introduced.
According to the UCSB Library’s announcement, administration and library leadership conducted a comprehensive analysis of its collections, programs and services to preserve library resources that are “most used by and most useful to the campus community.”
While many budgetary issues come from internally and at the federal level, many programs are being directly defunded at the federal level. The Department of Education ended discretionary funding for several grant programs within Minority-Serving Institutions, including Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) such as UCSB. UCSB was designated as a HSI in 2015, as it’s a non-profit campus with a full-time Hispanic undergraduate population of at least 25%.
At the time, Hispanic-Serving Institution Director Veronica Fematt said the elimination of these grants will primarily affect two HSI programs: Academy for Community-, Action-, and Use-Inspired Scholarship and Education (A-CAUSE) and Educational eXcellence and Inclusion Training Opportunities (ÉXITO).
UCSB’s CalFresh outreach program, which helps students apply for food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (S.N.A.P.), is facing a $178,219 budget cut for 2026, which is an approximate 60% reduction from their expected amount of $297,275.
Further budget cuts remain to be seen; the Nexus will continue to report on this topic as more information becomes available.
A version of this article appeared on p. 5 of the Nov. 6 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
