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CALMATTERS: ‘Super Disappointed’: Lawmakers Want UC to Enroll More Californians Sooner
One word, uttered under breath by a California lawmaker, captured a sentiment, at times boiling over into anger, among legislators struggling to get more California students into the University of California. What Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, a Democrat from Sacramento, found frustrating Tuesday was the UC’s seeming refusal to adopt the same systemwide guaranteed admissions policy for transfer students that the California State University has.

By Mikhail Zinshteyn
One word, uttered under breath by a California lawmaker, captured a sentiment, at times boiling over into anger, among legislators struggling to get more California students into the University of California.
What Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, a Democrat from Sacramento, found frustrating Tuesday was the UC’s seeming refusal to adopt the same systemwide guaranteed admissions policy for transfer students that the California State University has. But it was one of several expressions of legislative aggravation over the UC’s — and to a lesser degree, the Cal State’s — struggles to educate more Californians during an Assembly budget subcommittee on education hearing.
There’s an emotional and fiscal component to lawmakers’ disappointment. As chairperson of the subcommittee, McCarty frequently references parents telling him about their children who graduate high school with GPAs above 4.0 but aren’t accepted to a UC of their choice. To try and get more Californians into the vaunted public university system, the Legislature has recently given or promised the UC:
$51.5 million last summer to enroll the equivalent of 4,700 more full-time California students by 2023-24 — up from about 196,000 in 2021-22;
$30 million to UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego — UC campuses with the most out-of-state students and among the lowest admissions rates — so that they collectively enroll 900 fewer nonresident students, who pay three times more tuition, and replace them with in-state students;
And agreed with the governor to grow the UC’s state funding — by about $215 million more in 2023-24 if things work out — part of which is supposed to cover the UC’s raising its undergraduate California enrollment by 1%.
From all that, the Legislative Analyst’s Office calculated UC should enroll the equivalent of 203,500 California students in 2023-24. But UC’s projections show it’ll only educate 199,800 — about 4,000 short.
And for 2022-23, the UC estimates it’ll enroll the equivalent of about 300 fewer California residents than it did in 2021-22.
Now, lawmakers are asking why the UC can publish press releases about the large volume of students who apply each year and yet cannot find enough slots for all those applicants — especially at the most selective campuses, UC Berkeley and UCLA.
“You just sound out of touch with, you know, the dreams and aspirations of kids who are trying to go to a dream school,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, to the UC official taking the heat at Tuesday’s hearing, Seija Virtanen, associate director of state budget relations.
Grow and trust
The UC wants to enroll more students — and technically has. Complicating the debate over enrollment is that the state’s funding formula looks at full-time equivalent California residents. That’s different from what the lay person thinks of enrollment: headcount, or the actual number of people taking classes. The UC’s headcount of California undergraduates grew this year, but because those students are taking slightly fewer class units per term, the full-time equivalent enrollment dropped.
UC has a plan it shared with the committee: encourage more students to take summer school and add more than 4,000 new full-time equivalent California undergraduates a year through 2026-27. That would add 17,300 full-time equivalent California undergrads, about 4,000 more than what lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom wanted from UC.
The analyst’s office recommended that the 2023-24 state budget — due in late June — cut between roughly $9 million and $60 million from UC for projecting it’ll miss its enrollment targets this year and next. Lawmakers Tuesday didn’t seem ready to do so, but they put the UC on notice.
“We would be super, super disappointed…if we came back a year from now, and we had the same (problem),” said McCarty. “And then at the same time, tens of thousands of Californians from all of our districts with 4.3 GPAs didn’t get into the UC, even though their parents pay taxes.”
That the UC and California State University — which expects to be about 5.6% short of its state enrollment target this year, better than the 7% deficit it projected in January — are struggling to add more students is an inversion of recent trends.
For the past few years, both systems enrolled more Californians than what the state paid them to educate. Now, it’s lawmakers putting pressure on the state public universities to use the extra money they’ve already gotten.
McCarty’s message to the UC and Cal State Tuesday was to grow as much as they can and trust that the state would reimburse the universities for exceeding their enrollment targets.
UC’s Virtanen asked for that assurance in legislative writing.
“Campuses would feel far more comfortable making some additional offers of admittance knowing that if they’re over by 50 or 100 students, they would get those funds the next year, and we wouldn’t start building up unfunded enrollment,” she told the subcommittee. The state pays the UC about $10,900 for every California undergraduate it enrolls.
Adding to the enrollment uncertainty at both the UC and Cal State is the hemorrhaging of students at California’s community colleges, whose transfer students make up a large portion of undergraduates at the public universities. Though community college enrollment inched up this fall, it’s still down 280,000 students compared to fall 2019 — a collapse blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the Tuesday hearing, the UC debuted what it thought could be a solution: A senior UC official outlined a plan to guarantee admissions to California community college students who complete the right set of courses and meet GPA requirements.
It’s the first time the UC proposed a systemwide admissions guarantee; now such guarantees exist campus by campus and only at six UCs. Under the UC guaranteed admissions proposal, if a student isn’t admitted to a campus of their choice, they would be redirected to UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside or UC Merced.
But McCarty was unimpressed, faulting the plan because it wasn’t identical to the transfer admissions guarantee at Cal State. Lawmakers and advocates have been urging all three public higher-education systems to create a single set of requirements across academic majors, such as an associate degree that guarantees admission, so that community college students could enter either a UC or Cal State.
“We should be using proven pathways rather than adding new pathways and creating additional confusion for students,” said Molly Maguire, a policy director for the advocacy and research group Campaign for College Opportunity, during public comment at Tuesday’s hearing.
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Oakland Post: Week of July 9 – 15, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 9 – 15, 2025

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Black Americans Still Face Deep Retirement Gaps Despite Higher Incomes
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Debt remains a significant barrier. 63% of higher-income Black households said debt is a problem, while just 45% of non-Black households at the same income level said the same. Nearly half of upper-income Black respondents said debt affects their ability to save or live comfortably in retirement.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
A report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that Black Americans continue to face serious challenges in saving for retirement, even as their incomes grow.
The 2025 Retirement Confidence Survey, which included a special oversample of Black workers and retirees, found that the wealth gap remains wide at every income level. Among households earning $75,000 or more, only 33% of Black Americans reported having $250,000 or more in savings and investments, compared with 63% of non-Black Americans. Debt remains a significant barrier. 63% of higher-income Black households said debt is a problem, while just 45% of non-Black households at the same income level said the same. Nearly half of upper-income Black respondents said debt affects their ability to save or live comfortably in retirement.
While many Black Americans expressed confidence managing day-to-day budgets, fewer felt prepared to invest or plan for the long term. The study showed that Black Americans with higher incomes were less likely to have personally saved for retirement, 77%, compared with 87% of non-Black Americans. Retirement experiences also differed sharply. Forty-four percent of Black retirees said they retired earlier than planned because of a health problem or disability, compared with 32% of non-Black retirees. After leaving their main jobs, Black retirees were more likely to work for pay to make ends meet, and more often said their retirement lifestyle was worse than expected. Access to financial advice and planning remains uneven. Just 31% of Black respondents reported currently working with a financial advisor, although nearly half expect to do so in the future. Black Americans were more likely to seek help with reducing debt, creating wills or estate plans, and arranging life insurance than simply determining if they had saved enough to retire.
Researchers Craig Copeland and Lisa Greenwald wrote, “Black Americans reported disproportionately lower financial resources, and how they feel about retirement and financial security is clearly impacted by having less resources.” They continued, “In particular, Black retirees are struggling with higher likelihoods of their retirement lifestyle being worse than expected and having to retire earlier than planned because of a health problem or disability.” “Still,” the researchers concluded, “there are some modifications in the financial system that could help improve their prospects, such as increased assistance in balancing competing financial priorities like debt reduction, supporting family, and building long-term savings.”
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Scorching Heat Sparks Bipartisan Climate Alarm
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — As record-breaking heat waves sweep across the country this summer, a new national poll reveals an overwhelming majority of Americans are linking the punishing temperatures to climate change — and voicing deep concern about the government’s ability to respond.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
As record-breaking heat waves sweep across the country this summer, a new national poll reveals an overwhelming majority of Americans are linking the punishing temperatures to climate change — and voicing deep concern about the government’s ability to respond.
The American Climate Perspectives Survey 2025, conducted by ecoAmerica, found that 86% of Americans say rising temperatures have increased their concern about climate change, with more than half reporting they are “a lot” more concerned. The sentiment cuts across demographic and political lines, with 97% of Democrats, 83% of Independents, and 79% of Republicans expressing heightened worry about the climate crisis. “Americans are connecting extreme heat to climate change, their health, and government inaction,” said Meighen Speiser, Executive Director of ecoAmerica.
Nearly nine in ten respondents recognize the toll heat is taking on public health, with 58% saying extreme heat affects health “a lot.” This awareness is remarkably consistent across racial, age, and income groups. Among Black Americans, 91% said rising temperatures have intensified their concern about climate change, reflecting some of the highest concern levels among any group surveyed. Those concerns are not abstract. Decades of research by the Brookings Institution, NOAA, and others show Black communities often face the greatest exposure to extreme heat and the fewest resources to adapt. Studies have documented that historically redlined neighborhoods, where many Black Americans live, are routinely up to 10 degrees hotter than wealthier, predominantly white neighborhoods nearby.
In cities such as Atlanta and Baltimore, Black homeowners are significantly more likely to face heat risks and energy insecurity, limiting their ability to cool their homes as temperatures rise. Nationally, Black renters experience higher rates of energy insecurity, with over half struggling to afford adequate cooling during heat waves. Meanwhile, the latest study also points to a notable shift in how Americans perceive the link between climate change and extreme weather. Eighty-two percent now believe that climate change is making extreme events, such as floods, wildfires, and hurricanes, more frequent and severe, up six points since 2021. The most dramatic change is among Republicans: the share who recognize that climate change is fueling extreme weather surged 17 points over four years, from 58% in 2021 to 75% in 2025.
These findings arrive as proposals to slash funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) advance in Washington. The agencies are widely seen as the nation’s front-line defense against disasters and a critical source of weather forecasting and emergency relief. The risks are particularly acute for Black communities already facing disproportionate impacts from hurricanes and flooding, as seen in the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and more recent storms that have repeatedly displaced predominantly Black neighborhoods in the Gulf Coast and Southeast.
The survey shows Americans are not just worried about rising temperatures — they’re anxious about the government’s readiness to protect communities. Seventy-nine percent said cuts to FEMA and NOAA make them more concerned about the federal government’s ability to respond to climate impacts. That includes 92% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 69% of Republicans, underscoring that the anxiety is bipartisan.
Generational divides are also apparent. While 95% of young adults reported that extreme heat has boosted their concern about climate change, the figure was lower — but still significant — among adults over 65, at 70%. However, across all age groups, majorities agree that the crisis is escalating and requires immediate action. “These findings show it’s time to drop partisan politics and rather meet this moment with urgency, leadership, and protection,” Speiser said.
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