"It hurts" Trump's proposed budget cuts cause confusion across district

Reporting by Gia Santolalla and Sharon Tam

After a recent university tour to USC, Santiago Canyon College’s TRIO coordinator Cristina Marquez found herself down $40.

Despite TRIO’s reimbursement policy, the program recently lost the ability to pay back their program coordinator for program expenditures.

“I drove. I paid for the parking lot. I paid for someone’s meal because they didn’t have a meal,” Marquez said. “I didn’t even submit how much I spent for this student. Because it all came out of my pocket.”

TRIO is one of several programs at both Rancho Santiago Community College District campuses that have been impacted or is projected to be impacted by the Trump administration’s proposed changes to student service programs, a plan outlined in the White House’s Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Budget Request.

If passed by Congress, the budget will carry severe consequences for education and research institutions nationwide, including an $11 billion reduction for the Department of Education and the elimination of TRIO.

This elimination is explained by the Trump administration in the budget request: “Today, the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,” advising institutions of higher education to ensure their own students’ graduations. It further adds that “a renewed focus on academics and scholastic accomplishment… rather than engaging in woke ideology with Federal taxpayer subsidies would be a welcome change for students and the future of the Nation.”

The threats of elimination and budget cuts have led to a general sense of confusion, inability to plan for future semesters and decreased quality in student service programs in the district.

“When President Trump began to tell people he wasn’t too crazy about those grants… we started getting ready for it, planning what we’re going to do once the grants are no longer there,” said RSCCD Chancellor Marvin Martinez.

Another program targeted by the Trump administration’s budget request is the College Assistance Migrant Program, which offers assistance to farmworker students or students who depend on immediate family who are farmworkers. The budget request will cut $438 million in funds to education programs for migrant students, stating that, “These programs have not been proven effective [and] are extremely costly.”

CAMP has already been impacted by the federal government’s grant cuts and delays even before the approval of the request, thrusting the program into confusion over its future and how to effectively use its limited funds.

“We didn’t get our $180,000 continuation award for CAMP from July 1 to September 15… We were in what I call a ‘programmatic limbo’, like, are we continuing or are we not continuing?” said Eddie Rocha, director of Special Programs of Upward Bound and CAMP. “Uncertainty kicked in, uncertainty for people’s livelihoods, jobs and then uncertainty on how to move things forward.”

Although CAMP is based at SCC, its pause was felt across the entire school district since Santa Ana College students make up 60% of aid recipients.

While the federal administration eventually approved partial funding a month into the semester, CAMP is still giving out resources more cautiously than before due to the delayed and partially reduced budget. The program has also needed to increase communication, recruitment and event hosting to remain eligible for grant approval.

Another program at SCC—Upward Bound Math and Science, a high school serving program and a branch of TRIO—can no longer sustain the same quality of service it had previously provided, leaving its coordinators with the challenge of keeping the program afloat.

SCC’s UBMS Coordinator Tara Ontiveros, elaborated on her program’s financial struggles, “The difference is that everything is on a much smaller scale. For instance, in the past, for the summer residential program, we had enough money to take 40 students. Now we’re taking close to 25 to 30 students instead.”

Ontiveros added, “We had more funds to be able to provide students with school supplies, like paper, pencils and note cards. That’s just something that is limited now.”

Since the start of the fall semester, Marquez has been paying for extra necessities, such as parking for keynote speakers. Photo by Gia Santolalla / el Don.

TRIO at SCC reported difficulties in addition to the lack of reimbursement funds. Like CAMP, their grant notification was delayed. LaKyshia Perez, Assistant Dean of Student Services at SCC explained, “In normal years we are notified of the award for the next school year during February or March, but we weren’t notified until sometime in June.”

While TRIO at SAC has reported a different experience, the program’s future is far from secure.

“We were not impacted this academic year, but we don’t know the following year,” said SAC TRIO admin clerk Stephanie Lopez. “We’re trying to use up all our resources, all our funds, because we never know if any of them might be frozen, but as of right now, we’re just trying to allocate as much of our budget into our students as we can.”

Martinez has been asking student services programs to shuffle around the resources they do have to cover as much student support as they can.

“The last thing we want to do is to say ‘Well, that grant’s no longer there, so too bad, go home.’ We don’t want to do that. We want to be able to say, ‘Okay, look, that grant’s no longer there, but let us tell you how we’re going to continue to provide that service.’”

Student employees have shared how they’ve been redirected to other programs for basic needs while the funds were delayed.

“I feel like [our coordinator] is starting to encourage people to go to other program events where there’s going to be free snacks and food,” said a TRIO student employee who wishes to remain anonymous. “She’s kind of feeding us that way.”

According to the student employee, some people have suggested letting TRIO students just pay for some of the resources TRIO offers themselves, but she is adamant that this goes against TRIO’s fundamental values.

“We have to remember that people who join TRIO are first gen and low income. That’s why we are in this program, to get support. If the program itself is in need of support, how cooked are we?”

The sentiment from the student employee is that TRIO’s struggles have persisted even after it regained funding. The coordinator of SCC’s TRIO has mentioned budget cuts and financial distress outside of the grant delay, although both the assistant dean and the coordinator have declined to give a full breakdown of these slashes. These financial limitations are directly affecting the amount of money students have available to use on their education.

“Before, we would be able to give students grants through our funding, [amounting to] $800. We can’t do that anymore because we don’t have the budget,” said Marquez. “At SCC we were providing support to students who were undocumented, but as of January 1, we were told that we could no longer serve that community. It has to do with the administration, it has to do with Trump.”

Under these circumstances, it is uncertain how TRIO and other student support services will continue in the next academic year.

“I don’t want to say that the federal grant cuts haven’t hurt. It hurts,” said Martinez. “But whether you disagree with [Trump] or not, it is what it is. We have to work with the White House.”