Over 2,500 miles from Washington D.C., in a windowless meeting room at a San Diego community college, President Donald Trump’s fight with higher education is playing out.
“This presidential thing, we will not let that happen here at Mesa College,” said Lucio Lira, the coordinator at the college’s “pride center,” as an audience of over 50 students, faculty and staff applauded loudly.
That “thing” is a budget cut. President Trump is proposing to cut more than $10 billion from the US Department of Education for the 2026 fiscal year. For each national program he wants to cut, the justification is usually general, pointing to the need to shrink the role of the federal government or to undermine “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion efforts) and “woke ideology.” He singles out just one program by name: San Diego Community College District’s LGBTQ+ pride centers.
In California, more than half of all undergraduates attend community colleges, but unlike Ivy League institutions and major research universities, such as UCLA, community colleges have largely avoided Trump’s spending cuts and ire — so far. But they’re bracing for changes to come.
In 2023, each of San Diego’s four community colleges received over $225,000 through a federal grant to support spaces and programs for their LGBTQ+ students. That money is supporting “initiatives unrelated to students or institutional reforms,” Trump’s budget proposal says.
Those federal dollars helped Lira transform Mesa College’s meeting room into a banquet hall with tables, decorations and catering for a “Lavender Celebration.” At this event, the college honored its LGBTQ+ graduates by offering each a pride-themed stole — or, as Lira says, a “sash” — to wear at commencement. Technically, any student can participate in the Lavender Celebration and receive a stole because California’s Proposition 209, in effect since voters approved it nearly three decades ago, bans giving “preferential treatment” to students based on race or sex.
After Lira’s speech, the college president, the district’s chancellor and one of the district’s board members spoke to the graduates, criticizing the Trump administration for singling out these San Diego pride centers, and for its February letter to colleges, which threatened to pull federal funding from any school that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion. Colleges across the country have cancelled or rebranded graduation events for LGBTQ+ students out of concern that these events could also violate the administration’s order.
San Diego Community College District Chancellor Gregory Smith said the pride centers are planning to spend down the federal money “as quickly as we can so it isn’t pulled back.” Meanwhile, Trump’s budget proposal requires Congressional approval, which can take months.
‘Republicans’ favorite scapegoat’
Lira and his staff set up the meeting room for the celebration, draping each table in a lavender cloth and hanging streamers from the ceiling. Together with the balloons and the catering, including pan dulce with lavender-colored crusts, the event cost about $3,000, he said, all of it supported by federal funds.
The grants to San Diego’s pride centers were an earmark, requested by local Democratic US Rep. Sara Jacobs. A co-chair of the “Transgender Equality Task Force” in the House, Jacobs said Trump’s proposed cuts to San Diego’s pride centers have little to do with this particular grant.
“He wants to be able to control what (colleges) teach, who they admit and hire, what areas of study they can follow. He wants us to be talking about LGBTQ+ kids instead of how he’s attacking the ideals that higher education is founded on, like free speech,” she said. “LGBTQ+ kids and especially trans kids are Republicans’ favorite scapegoat.”
San Diego’s LGBTQ+ center isn’t the only cited reason for cutting the roughly $200 million federal program where the earmark came from, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Trump’s budget offers another, broader justification too, saying colleges and states, not the federal government, “should be responsible for funding institutional reforms and innovative programs. These additional resources have allowed colleges and universities to fund ideologies instead of students, while still raising tuition costs.”
Trump targets one other community college grant in California as justification for cutting another, roughly $100 million federal program, although without naming the college. “It is not the responsibility of Federal taxpayers to support a new ‘Guided Pathways Village, expanding the current Learning Communities and creating a new Ethnic and Pride Inclusion Center for historically underserved students, including LGBTQ+ students,’” the budget proposal says. The language about the “Guided Pathways Village” directly matches a 2021 press release about a $2.25 million federal grant to De Anza College in Cupertino.
Already, his administration has slashed research funding to professors who study LGBTQ issues and prevented federally funded programs from recognizing non-binary or gender nonconforming students.
On Tuesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, threatening to withhold “large scale Federal Funding” from California because of one transgender athlete.
Snacks and support at the LGBTQ+ center
When the pride center isn’t hosting events, it’s a hang-out space, where students stop by to grab a snack, study, and talk with Lira, who is a counselor. Outside the center is a rack of free clothes for students who are transitioning their gender.
“Like everyone else I come here most days for the food,” said student Daniella Abbott with a laugh. “I honestly met most of my friends here.” She said she has seen the pride center grow in popularity since it first opened in February 2023. Now Lira said over 30 students come to the center each day.
Christopher Delgado is also a regular. “When I first came here, I was about to be homeless,” he said. Lira recommended he enroll in a counseling course that’s specifically targeted to LGBTQ+ students, which changed his life, he said. “I was able to lift myself out of a bad place.” He is set to graduate next year but came to the Lavender Celebration to cheer on his friends.
Delgado identifies as gay while others around him say they’re trans, queer, pansexual or bisexual. Some aren’t out to their families or say their parents aren’t supportive.
After all the speeches, Lira returned to the podium, where he announced graduates’ names and placed stoles around their necks. The students transferring to four-year universities announced their plans, and each posed for a photo with the college president and district chancellor.
Abbott was the first name called. Standing at the podium next to Lira, she announced that she’s headed to UCLA in the fall, though it isn’t technically true – at least not yet. “I got waitlisted,” she told CalMatters with a laugh. “It’s happening. They just don’t know it yet.”
Her back-up, UC San Diego, already admitted her and she said it offered a generous financial aid package — a requirement for her.
As part of the federal earmark, Mesa College gave out $500 scholarships to low-income LGBTQ+ students involved in the pride center, and Abbott was one of the many recipients.
“When I found out I got the scholarship, I was like ‘Oh great, I can finally get lunch,” she said. It was a joke, she later clarified, but there’s a kernel of truth: Although she lives at home with her parents, Abbott is responsible for most of her living costs, such as gas and food. She received around $8,400 in federal financial aid in the past academic year, as well as $4,000 in state aid.
Many of California’s roughly 2 million community college students are low-income — some are even homeless — and like Abbott, they rely on federal aid to cover daily expenses. In his budget, Trump proposes ending long-standing programs that offer academic counseling and cash to low-income students who are the first generation in their families to attend college. The Education Department has already moved to exclude students without legal status from accessing that program.
Earlier this year, the advocacy association for California’s community college presidents and trustees asked the state to help offset the impact of federal budget cuts, but the state has a projected budget deficit, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposals don’t mention the association’s request.
Funded or not, federal programs at risk
The federal budget is even more complicated. With Trump’s proposal in mind, the Republican-controlled Congress drafts its own spending bill, which the president must ultimately sign. The House of Representatives put forward its spending proposal in April, but unlike Trump’s budget, the House version doesn’t mention the 2023 earmark to the San Diego pride centers or the US Education Department’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.
That’s probably because the House is focused on high-dollar programs, said Iris Palmer, the director of community college policy at the think tank New America. She said the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, about $200 million a year, is “not even a drop in the bucket.”
Even if Congress funds higher education programs that Trump wants to cut, Palmer said the administration could try to avoid implementing them. “They’ve fired everyone,” she said, “It makes it very hard to run grant programs.”
Regardless, the San Diego pride centers are planning to exhaust their federal funds no later than next summer, and earmarks are, by design, a one-time grant. All told, about half of the Mesa Pride Center’s budget comes from the federal earmark, said Lira. The rest is from the state, and the state Legislature has signaled that money will continue, at least into next year.
Smith, the San Diego colleges’ district chancellor, didn’t specify how, exactly, the pride center will handle the cuts, though he said that some resources will “definitely go away.”
Once the Lavender Celebration is over, a few students and volunteers remain to clean up, including Valerie Seng, a professor of medical assisting at Mesa College, and Sage Shevkolenko, a student and project assistant at the pride center. In a community where some students don’t feel comfortable going home or coming out, they’re a bright spot: Seng is Shevkolenko’s mom.
“It means a lot,” said Shevkolenko, referring to her mom’s presence at the event, as they both helped take down the streamers and began dismantling the branded backdrop where students took photos in their stoles. “I know that a lot of families don’t have that privilege.”