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School air quality bill that aims to strengthen EPA oversight reintroduced

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Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., on Wednesday reintroduced bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting students, teachers and others from poor indoor air quality by expanding the role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act, first introduced in July 2024, would require a nationwide assessment of indoor air quality in schools and childcare facilities and give schools and childcare centers tools to improve IAQ conditions.

“No one should have to suffer the consequences of poor indoor air quality, least of all our kids and students seeking an education at school,” Tonko said a statement. “Our bipartisan Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act protects the health of our communities by establishing science-based guidelines and delivering effective tools and best practices to minimize indoor health risks.”

The bill would update, expand and codify the work of EPA’s Indoor Environments Division and direct the agency to develop and recognize one or more voluntary certifications for buildings designed, operated and maintained to prevent or minimize indoor air health risks.

“Ultimately, it tries to establish a nationwide assessment of IAQ in schools and childcare facilities,” Jason Hartke, executive vice president of external affairs and global advocacy at the International WELL Building Institute, told Facilities Dive. “It goes back to the old adage that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. As these technologies get better and cheaper, it’s a huge opportunity for folks to tune the environmental quality to human health and well-being.”

The EPA’s Science Advisory Board has consistently ranked poor IAQ as a top five environmental risk to public health, with over 3 million people globally dying prematurely each year from disease exposure caused by poor IAQ, according to a fact sheet on the legislation.

Progress has been made to address outdoor air pollution, but studies show that indoor air contaminants can be two to five times, and occasionally 100 times, higher than outdoor contaminants, the fact sheet says.

The legislation would also support the development of technical assistance, guidelines and best practices to improve the IAQ conditions of schools and childcare facilities.

“It’s a big deal because it targets some new tools to better assess indoor air quality in our nation’s schools,” said Hartke. “It’s a really powerful bill supported by dozens of organizations.

The legislation is supported by the Allergy and Asthma Network, American Federation of Teachers, ASHRAE, International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, IWBI, John Hopkins Center for Health Security and the U.S. Green Building Council, according to the lawmakers’ statements.

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September 5, 2025
Test yourself on the past week’s K-12 news

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How well did you keep up with this week’s developments in K-12 education? To find out, take our five-question quiz below. Then, share your score by tagging us on social media with #K12DivePopQuiz.

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September 5, 2025
California discipline data show widespread disparities despite reforms
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Dive Brief:
- California’s Black, foster and homeless student populations are experiencing persistent and widespread discipline disparities despite state reforms to reduce inequities, a new report from the National Center for Youth Law said.
- The report found that students in the foster system lost 76.6 days of instruction per 100 students enrolled in 2023-24 due to out-of-school suspensions — seven times the statewide average for all students of 10.7 days lost per 100 students. And in many districts, the suspension gap between Black and White students has increased significantly over the past seven years.
- NCYL warns that discipline disparities could widen even more as the Trump administration seeks to eliminate school discipline practices meant to address racial inequity for historically marginalized student populations.
Dive Insight:

NCYL’s analysis of discipline data in California shows that while some districts have made progress in reducing disparities, many continue to suspend and expel students at disproportionately high rates.

For example, students experiencing homelessness lost 29.1 days because of out-of-school suspensions per 100 students enrolled in 2023-24. Students with disabilities lost 23.4 days of instruction per 100 students enrolled the same school year, which is nearly three times higher than students without disabilities, according to the report.

Black foster youth had the highest disproportionate discipline rate with 121.8 days per 100 students enrolled due to out-of-school suspensions. That’s 15 times the rate of lost instruction for all enrolled Whites students, which was 7.9 lost days per 100 students.

The report’s analysis pulls from discipline data between the 2017-18 and 2023-24 school years. California doesn’t publicly report on the number of school days lost by offense category. Rather, NCYL developed the metric to compare rates across districts, over time and between student groups, the report said.

Additionally, NCYL’s data analysis shows that most suspensions are for minor misconduct that did not involve injury, such as the use of profanity or vulgarity. The 2024-25 school year was the first in which no suspensions were allowed for willful defiance in grades K-12 in California, although the policy had been phased in for younger grades in the years before.

The report recommends that the state disaggregate discipline data for the offenses with the highest rates so the public can see which are for violent and nonviolent behaviors. Currently, most suspensions in California schools, even for profanity and vulgarity offenses, can be reported under a category titled “violent incident, no injury,” which can be misleading, NCYL said.

When most suspensions are reported under the category of ‘violent incident, no injury’ or ‘violent incident, injury’ people will assume the offenses were violent, but they could be mostly profanity and vulgarity, said Dan Losen, co-author of the report and senior director for education at NCYL.

“Don’t call obscenity violence. It’s not violent,” Losen said. “These very subjective determinations about what’s profanity, what’s vulgarity, what’s obscene, what’s not obscene is fertile ground for implicit racial bias.”

The report highlights several California districts making improvements in reducing discipline disparities. Merced Union High District, for instance, has reduced its rate of lost instruction from 58.3 days per 100 Black students in 2017-18, to 8.8 days per 100 Black students in 2023-24. Lost instruction days for students with disabilities went from 32 in 2017-18 to 6.1 in 2023-24 per 100 students with disabilities.

The report credited the reductions in lost instruction to the district’s efforts at problem-solving rather than punitive measures and for providing student supports like individualized interventions and behavioral services.

NCYL recommends several statewide initiatives to reduce discipline disparities, including strengthening state civil rights enforcement and oversight of district discipline practices, as well as expanding support for students in the foster system, students experiencing homelessness, and students with disabilities.

However, statewide reforms in California could be in jeopardy under the Trump administration’s efforts to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs nationally, the report said. Such state reforms have included a ban on suspensions for willful defiance in grades K-12 and the explicit inclusion of school discipline in the California Department of Education’s statewide accountability system.

Specifically, the report points to a White House executive order issued in April that calls for a stop to “unlawful ‘equity’ ideology” in school discipline. The order requires the U.S. Department of Education to issue guidance on states’ and districts’ obligations “not to engage in racial discrimination under Title VI in all contexts, including school discipline.”

Critics of equity-based discipline policies say they hamper school safety.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs.

The federal discipline guidance required by Trump’s executive order has not yet been issued, and the Education Department did not respond to inquiries about its status. While discipline policies are typically set at the school, district or state levels, the federal government can issue guidance and investigate schools for discriminatory practices under Title VI.

The civil rights law has historically been invoked to protect the rights of historically marginalized students, including when they are overrepresented in school discipline — and especially exclusionary discipline — data. However, the current administration has used the law to protect White and Asian students, sometimes at the expense of DEI efforts meant to level the playing field for those historically marginalized groups.

“One should expect that, soon, all student groups that have experienced unjustifiably high rates of removal will be excluded from educational opportunities on disciplinary grounds even more often,” the NCYL report said.
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September 5, 2025
University of California would need $5B if it lost federal funding, leader says
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Dive Brief:
- The University of California system’s president warned state lawmakers Wednesday that it would need at least $4 billion to $5 billion to minimize harm in the event of a major loss of federal funding.
- In a letter to state Sen. Scott Wiener, chair of California’s joint legislative budget committee, UC President James Milliken said the Trump administration’s actions “place the entire University of California system at risk,” noting there is a“distinct possibility of more to come.”
- The federal government in August suspended $584 million in grants to the University of California, Los Angeles over antisemitism-related allegations. Milliken responded at the time that cuts “do nothing to address antisemitism.”
Dive Insight:

In his letter to Wiener, Milliken detailed the many ways the University of California depends on federal funding. That includes $5.7 billion in research funding and $1.9 billion in student financial aid per year. UCLA alone received over $875 million in federal grants and contracts in fiscal 2024, according to the latest system financials.

He also described the potential impacts of losing this funding in dire terms.

“Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad,” he wrote.

Cutting off research funding, largely for scientific studies, has been the primary tool of the Trump administration when targeting colleges. Federal officials often link the cuts to allegations that colleges aren’t doing enough to respond to campus antisemitism that the administration ties to protests over Israel’s war against Hamas.

In some cases, the tactic has paid off for the federal government. Columbia University agreed to settle allegations by paying $221 million to the federal government in return for having most of its $400 million in suspended research grants restored.

The administration is also seeking $500 million from Harvard University, which has been navigating a multi-agency attack from the federal government.

However, a federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration’s suspension of $2.2 billion of Harvard’s funding was unlawful. The judge in the case concluded that the evidence does not “reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard.”

On the West Coast, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in June it was investigating the UC system over “potential race- and sex-based discrimination in university employment practices.”

Meanwhile, the administration has also demanded $1 billion from UCLA specifically. While the UC system and UCLA have negotiated with the administration, Milliken in August said the sum “would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians.”

State officials have panned the administration’s demand in fiercer terms, with both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Wiener describing it as extortion.

In an August statement, Wiener likened the $1 billion demand to “classic mob boss behavior,” describing the administration as “threatening to illegally revoke funding — here, science funding — or take other punitive steps unless the university submits to his control, pays him off, and submits to his racist, transphobic, xenophobic dictates.”

As it navigates the numerous financial risks at the federal level, as well as other structural financial pressures, UCLA has paused faculty hiring and is moving to consolidate its IT operations to save costs on top of past budget moves.

In his letter to Wiener, Milliken described the current moment as “one of the gravest threats in UC’s 157-year history,” and suggested further actions from the Trump administration could be in store later.

In outlining the amounts the UC system would need to survive a blow to federal funding, he said that the UC system “will need the resolve and partnership of our state’s leaders.
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September 5, 2025
the realities of foreign language anxiety
Picture this: you’ve crossed oceans, packed your suitcase, a dictionary (or maybe just Google Translate), your dreams, and a relentless drive to succeed in a US higher education setting. You’ve landed in the United States, ready for college life. But before you can even start worrying about your academic experience or how to navigate campus life and groceries you’re hit with a more personal challenge: “Will I sound awkward if I say this out loud?”

For many non-native English speakers, this is not just a fleeting thought. It’s a daily reality known as foreign language anxiety – “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening, and learning.” It can limit and negatively impact a student’s ability to communicate, threaten self-confidence, and, over time, affect academic performance.

Why it matters more than we think

Foreign language anxiety is more than a minor inconvenience. International students must maintain full-time enrolment to keep their visa status. If foreign language anxiety leads to missed classes, delayed assignments, or low grades, the consequences can be severe — including losing that status and returning home without a degree.

Even though incoming students meet minimum language proficiency requirements, many have had little practice using English in real-life spontaneous situations. Passing a standardised test is one thing; responding to a professor’s question in front of a class of native speakers is another. This gap can lead to self-consciousness, fear, and avoidance behaviours that hinder academic and social success.

The three faces of language anxiety

Research shows that foreign language anxiety often takes three forms:
1. Fear of negative evaluation – Worrying about being judged for language mistakes, whether by professors or peers. Some students are comfortable in class but avoid informal conversations. Others avoid eye contact entirely to escape being called on.
2. Communication apprehension – Feeling uneasy about speaking in a foreign language, even for students who were confident communicators in their home country. Concerns about sounding less capable than native speakers can lead to silence in classroom discussions.
3. Test anxiety – Stress about organising and expressing ideas under time pressure in a second language. This is not just about knowing the material; it’s about performing under linguistic and cognitive strain.
These anxieties can actively block learning. When students focus on how they sound rather than what is being said, their ability to process information suffers.

The role of faculty and administrators

Faculty and administrators may underestimate how much their approach affects international students’ confidence. Being corrected for grammar in front of others is one of the most anxiety-provoking experiences students report. In contrast, giving students time to answer, offering feedback privately, and creating an environment where mistakes are treated as part of learning can significantly reduce foreign language anxiety.

When capable, motivated students are held back by the effects of foreign language anxiety, institutions risk losing both talent and the global perspectives these students offer

University administrators can also make a difference through peer mentoring programs, conversation workshops, and targeted support services. However, these resources are only effective if students are aware of them and feel comfortable using them.

Why this isn’t just a student problem

It’s easy to think of foreign language anxiety as a personal obstacle each student must overcome, but it has larger implications. International students bring global perspectives, enrich classroom discussions, and contribute to campus culture.

Their success is both a moral responsibility and an investment in the overall quality and strength of higher education. When capable, motivated students are held back by the effects of foreign language anxiety, institutions risk losing both talent and the global perspectives these students offer. Taking steps to reduce its impact benefits the entire academic community.

Moving forward

Addressing foreign language anxiety is not about lowering academic standards. It’s about giving students a fair chance to meet them by reducing unnecessary barriers. For students, this means practicing conversation in low anxiety provoking settings, seeking clarification when needed, and accepting that mistakes are a natural part of language learning. For faculty and staff, it means being intentional about communication, offering encouragement, and ensuring that resources are accessible and culturally responsive.

Foreign language anxiety is a shared challenge that can undermine even the most motivated and capable students. Often, the greatest hurdle of studying abroad is not mastering complex coursework, adjusting to life far from home, or navigating cultural differences – it is the moment a student must raise their hand, speak in a language that is not their own, and hope that their words are understood as intended.

Beyond academics, foreign language anxiety can affect the kinds of social and academic engagement that are essential for building leadership skills. Group work, class discussions, and participation in student organisations often require students to communicate ideas clearly, respond to feedback, and collaborate across cultures – the same skills needed to lead effectively in professional environments.

However, literature on foreign language anxiety suggests that students may hesitate to take on visible roles or avoid speaking in group settings altogether, limiting their ability to practice these skills. When students withdraw from such opportunities, they lose more than a chance to participate – they miss experiences that can shape confidence, decision-making, and the ability to work with diverse teams.

Understanding and addressing the impact of foreign language anxiety, therefore, is not only relevant for academic success but also for preparing graduates to step into leadership roles in a global context.
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September 5, 2025
The Victory for Harvard Is a Victory for Democracy

The Sept. 3 ruling for Harvard by federal judge Allison Burroughs is the most important decision so far for defending academic freedom against the attacks by the Trump administration. The permanent injunction against the Trump administration’s ban on funding to Harvard will eliminate much of the Trump regime’s ability to hold Harvard hostage—unless it is able to find a higher court willing to defend these illicit attacks on higher education and free expression.

With this ruling, Columbia’s decision to submit to the Trump administration and pay $221 million looks not merely spineless but financially stupid. While former Harvard president Lawrence Summers praised Columbia’s submission and urged Harvard to obey, a large group of Harvard faculty and students fortunately pressured their administrators to hold firm, at least for long enough to enable a court ruling that restores the money researchers at Harvard are entitled to.

Now that this ruling has been won, Harvard needs to take the fight to its conclusion. It cannot settle with the Trump administration and give away this victory, since that would leave Harvard at the mercy of Trump officials anytime they decided to punish Harvard again. A settlement by Harvard now would be not only cowardly but crazy.

The conservatives on the Supreme Court may soon be forced to choose between obeying the law and the Constitution or obeying Donald Trump, and they have shown little desire to defy the president’s commands no matter how illicit they are.

The most likely path for the Supreme Court justices to help the Trump administration destroy higher education is jurisdictional. The Trump administration argued unsuccessfully that this entire lawsuit must be heard in another federal court because it relates to federal contracts.

The court could order that the legal process begin anew in a different court, reinstate the Trump bans against Harvard and hope that the long pathway to a resolution would pressure Harvard to give Trump his $500 million extortion and agree to suppress academic freedom without the Supreme Court needing to review a case where the law is unquestionably on Harvard’s side.

But while the unprincipled political hacks who dominate the Supreme Court make that evasion of moral and legal responsibility a possible result, it’s also possible that enough conservative justices have a modicum of integrity left to question the obviously illegal and unconstitutional attacks on Harvard—not because they like Harvard, but because they recognize the necessity of the Supreme Court restraining a president who is indifferent to the law and the Constitution.

It’s important to point out just how dumb the Trump administration officials are. By issuing a May 5 freeze order stating, “Today’s letter marks the end of new grants for the University,” the Trump administration removed any possible doubt that it had made a final decision against Harvard in violation of the law and the First Amendment.

If the Trump administration had simply frozen grants but pretended to make an ongoing evaluation, it might have created enough doubt to survive judicial scrutiny long enough to force Harvard into submission. Instead, the overwhelming desire to punish Harvard by any means possible may ultimately lose this case for the Trump administration. For all of the partisan posturing and ideological bias, some judges still will follow the law, and the law is clearly on Harvard’s side, as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression noted in what it called “the flatly unlawful and unconstitutional means used by the Trump administration in this attempted hostile takeover.”

Every other university now has a clear path for what it needs to do: resist, sue, win. It’s absolutely shocking that Harvard has been the only university to (however reluctantly) undertake the aggressive litigation approach that is the only reasonable strategy against the repression of the Trump regime.

The fight by Harvard against Trump’s authoritarianism could be a victory not just for higher education, but for democracy. But Harvard needs to keep on fighting if it wants to prevail.

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September 5, 2025
Biotech to “Shift to U.K. and China” After U.S. mRNA Cuts

The U.K. and China will be the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. health secretary’s “own goal” of pulling funding for mRNA vaccines, according to experts.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a controversial member of Donald Trump’s cabinet who claims he wants to “make America healthy again,” is scrapping $500 million in funding for the technology—which was used to combat COVID-19.

Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said other countries with active biotechnology industries will benefit, but the decision will still delay the development of new vaccines worldwide.

“Progress will continue but not as quickly as otherwise. Lives will be lost that could have been saved had there been a vaccine,” he told Times Higher Education.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 22 projects by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, will be affected. The projects were working on vaccines against bird flu and other viruses.

“It will certainly make the U.S. poorer for not having a biotechnology industry that is not as competitive as it could be,” added Hunter. “The U.S. will certainly lose out to China and Europe, and when its researchers move overseas, it may not be easy to get them to return later.”

He said the migration of talent to the U.K. is already under way—with his department recently shortlisting a research assistant who had been working in the U.S.

Kennedy said mRNA technology “poses more risks than benefits” for respiratory viruses and announced a shift toward “safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”

“I would certainly say it’s an own goal for the U.S. and something they are likely to regret,” said Robin Shattock, professor of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London.

Shattock said innovation would continue at pace in the U.K., mainland Europe and Asia. While China pushes ahead with RNA technologies, the U.S. appears to be looking to shift to older technology used by Chinese companies.

“This current retrograde step by the U.S. will allow others to catch up and likely pull ahead in the context of vaccines,” he added. “It will only take another pandemic for them to rapidly see their mistake.”

Charles Bangham, professor emeritus of immunology also at Imperial, said the cuts to U.S. aid and higher education funding have already been seriously damaging for research, but this latest “antiscience” decision will be harmful to both manufacturing and health.

“The disinvestment in mRNA vaccine development and production is, in my view, a serious error.”

“It is a blow to the U.S.’ own interests—they’re shooting themselves in the foot.”

In the absence of any strong evidence that COVID-19 vaccines caused adverse reactions, Bangham said it was hard to rationalize why the U.S. was acting so decisively on “the basis of a few anecdotes.”

“It’s more than a lack of competency. I think it’s active and explicit, and often voiced, opposition and denigration and disavowal of the value of scientific evidence, which I think is extremely damaging.”

Along with the U.K., Europe and China, there are now “huge opportunities” for research development in Southeast Asia, he added.

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September 5, 2025
Brown to Fund Grad Students Who Lost Grants

The university has vowed to honor financial commitments made to M.F.A. and Ph.D. students.

Brown University will give money to some of its graduate students whose federal research grants were cut by the Trump administration, The Brown Daily Herald reported.

“We want to make sure that we’re able to give each of you all of the attention and support that you need to get through comfortably [and] well supported,” Janet Blume, interim dean of the graduate school, said at a Graduate Student Council meeting Wednesday. She said the university will honor the financial commitments of M.F.A. and Ph.D. students who lost their grants.

The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies have terminated thousands of academic researchers’ grants—including many at Brown—that don’t align with the Trump administration’s ideological agenda.

Blume said Brown is also reducing its graduate student admissions target this year to allow “time to work out issues of the federal financial landscape and also shifts in the job market.”

In addition to canceling research grants, numerous federal agencies have put forth plans to cap the amount of money they reimburse universities to cover indirect research costs, which universities say will hurt their budgets and slow innovation. Brown is among the institutions suing the government over its changes to indirect cost reimbursement rates, which are on pause during ongoing litigation.

Brown, which had a $46 million deficit before President Trump took office in January, has also faced targeted scrutiny from the Trump administration. The university implemented a hiring freeze in March. In April, the government froze $510 million of Brown’s federal research dollars in retaliation for the university’s alleged failures to address antisemitism on campus.

In June, administrators warned of the potential for “significant cost-cutting” measures amid the “deep financial losses” resulting from grant cuts, increased endowment taxes and threats to international student enrollment.

The following month, Brown and the government came to an agreement, and the frozen grant money is coming back to the university. However, the deal did not restore the grants of researchers whose funding was terminated as part of the broader ideologically driven policy changes.

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September 5, 2025
College Board Ends Tool to Share Geographic Context With Colleges

Landscape, a College Board tool for providing colleges with information about the educational environment of an applicant’s high school and neighborhood based on publicly available information, has been discontinued, the organization announced this week.

“As federal and state policy continues to evolve around how institutions use demographic and geographic information in admissions, we are making a change to ensure our work continues to effectively serve students and institutions,” College Board wrote in the short announcement.

Geographic recruitment has come under fire from the Trump administration. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, in a memo declaring various diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives unconstitutional, said that recruiting from specific areas or neighborhoods could be unlawful when it’s being done as a proxy for race. Experts have said that doing so is not a standard practice for universities.

Jon Boeckenstedt, a longtime enrollment manager, criticized the decision to discontinue Landscape in a post on LinkedIn.

“I’m no fan of College Board of course … but I thought Landscape was a good and thoughtful product,” he wrote. “Now, it’s going away. You don’t have to be Wile E. Coyote to figure out why. Someone in DC has suggested it’s too close to ‘race based admissions’ (a thing that does not exist) and ‘it’d be a shame if something happened to your company.’ Or their lawyers rolled over voluntarily.”

Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that successfully challenged affirmative action at the Supreme Court, lauded the decision.

“Since the 2023 Supreme Court opinion in our Harvard and UNC cases, Students for Fair Admissions raised has concerns that Landscape was little more than a disguised proxy for race in the admissions process. We are gratified that this problematic tool will no longer be used to influence who is and who is not admitted to America’s colleges and universities,” he wrote in a statement. “This decision represents another important step toward ensuring that all students are treated as individuals, not as representatives of a racial or ethnic group.”

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September 5, 2025
UC System Warns of Broader Risks in Federal Funding Fight

The Trump administration has already frozen $500 million in grant funding at UCLA.

The University of California system is warning state lawmakers that federal funding cuts could extend well beyond UCLA as tensions between the Trump administration and American colleges continue to rise.

UC president James B. Milliken wrote a letter to dozens of local elected officials Tuesday explaining that “the stakes are high and the risks are very real.” The system’s 10 institutions could lose billions of dollars in aid, forcing its leaders to make tough calls about staffing, the continuation of certain academic programs and more, he said.

President Trump has already frozen more than $500 million in grants at UCLA, allegedly because the Justice Department accused the university of violating Jewish students’ civil rights. The president demanded the university pay a $1.2 billion fine to unlock the funds, and system officials are worried that more funding cuts are likely. California lawmakers have repeatedly urged the UC system not to capitulate.

In an August letter, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat and chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, and 33 other lawmakers told Milliken that Trump’s actions were “an extortion attempt and a page out of the authoritarian playbook,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Milliken wrote in Tuesday’s letter that a loss in funding would “devastate” the system and harm students, among other groups.

“Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad,” he wrote.

If the UC system loses federal funding, it would need about $4 to $5 billion a year to make up the difference, Milliken added. “That is what fighting for the people of California will take.”

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September 5, 2025