Dominican University of California in San Rafael will lose $3.1 million in federal grant money because of the Trump administration’s decision to cut off funding for programs reserved for colleges with large numbers of minority students.
“The timing and the immediate impact of the withdrawal was a shock and feels fairly devastating, but it was not totally unanticipated,” said Nicola Pitchford, the university president.
The U.S. Department of Education announced this month “that it will end discretionary funding to several Minority-Serving Institutions grant programs that discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.”
Minority-serving institutions are U.S. colleges that enroll a significant percentage of students from racial or ethnic minority groups. For example, in order for an institution of higher learning to be designated as a “Hispanic-serving institution,” at least 25% of its undergraduate students must be Hispanic.
Likewise, in order to be named as an Asian American, Native American or Pacific Islander-serving institution, at least 10% of an institution’s undergraduates must identify as such.
In 2022, Dominican University received both designations and was awarded a five-year, $3 million grant to support efforts to increase first-year and transfer enrollment and improve retention and graduation rates for Hispanic students. In 2023, Dominican received a second five-year, $3 million grant through the HSI program to fund a similar effort for its graduate students.
“We started this year with a balanced operating budget, but that included the grant funds we were counting on,” Pitchford said, “so we are not going to be able to absorb the full cost of continuing these programs.”
Pitchford said $1.2 million of the grant funds were factored into the current fiscal year’s operating revenues. One of the programs created with the grant money was a summer offering designed to give first-year students a head start.
“Its curriculum and programming centers the interests and cultural wealth of those who identify as Latinx, Black, Indigenous, first-generation, and students of color,” Lindsey Dean, a Dominican program director, was quoted as saying in an article posted on the university’s website.
Another program director, Lucia Leon, assistant professor of Latino studies and social justice, was quoted as saying, “By centering BIPOC students’ experiences, and the activist and academic efforts to expand educational equity, students will reflect on their lived experience, community and social justice.” BIPOC is an acronym for Black, Indigenous and people of color.
Pitchford said, “The programs that we’re supporting through the HSI grant are very often programs that are shown to have a very impactful effect for Hispanic students, but they’re not exclusionary. We have students from other racial backgrounds who are in those programs and benefiting from the grant funding.”
She said that was one of the grant requirements.
The loss of the grant money comes as Dominican University, like many colleges and universities across the nation, struggles with declining enrollments and new mandates from the Trump administration.
“Our total enrollment has declined over recent years, largely due to declines (felt everywhere) in undergraduate students,” Pitchford wrote in an email, “but our graduate student population has grown over this time.”
The university is starting the school year with 1,085 undergraduates and 628 graduate enrollees.
Beginning with the fiscal year ending in June 2016, Dominican’s yearly revenue has exceeded its expenses only twice, and over that time the university has sustained about $17 million in losses. It lost $7 million in the year ending in June 2021 alone, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the fiscal year that ended last June, the most recent year for which data are available, the university lost about $1 million despite drawing $3.5 million from its endowment. The current value of Dominican’s endowment is $28 million, which is considered modest for a school of its size.
The day before the Department of Education announced it was shutting down the minority-serving grant programs, Dominican listed Magnolia House, a Georgian-style house built in 1918 where its admissions and human resources offices are located, for sale. The asking price is $3.49 million, even though the 1.3-acre property has an assessed value of $7.58 million for property tax purposes.
“This was a decision that was made well before the withdrawal of our grants,” Pitchford said. “We’re very intentionally engaged in making sure that we are using all of our assets to be as resilient as possible.”
In 2023, the university sold two parcels adjacent to its campus, totaling about 19 acres, to housing developers for $3.1 million.
Regarding whether Dominican might mount a legal challenge to the Department of Education’s decision to withhold previously promised grant money, Pitchford said the school will be guided by state and national professional organizations, and any legal challenge is likely to be undertaken collectively.
Pitchford said she found “perplexing” the Department of Education’s assertion that the minority-serving institutions grant program is discriminatory.
“These programs were congressionally created in the early 1990s,” she said, “and federal civil rights law has not changed to suddenly render them discriminatory or illegal.”
“We’re not a highly selective institution, so we’re not turning away students from any racial group in order to be as diverse as we are,” she said.
Omar Carrera, the chief executive officer of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit serving San Rafael’s predominately Latino Canal neighborhood, wrote in an email, “Canal Alliance is a proud community partner of Dominican University, and we deeply value our collaboration to expand educational opportunity for immigrant and first-generation college students in Marin. The Department of Education’s decision to end funding for Minority-Serving Institutions is concerning.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said, “This is something that is going to have a huge impact on the bottom line of colleges and universities like Dominican.”
Huffman rejected the idea that the minority-serving programs are discriminatory.
“This is right out of the White privilege playbook,” he said. “These are fantastical theories that somehow White people are victims of systemic discrimination in this country.”
Frank Drouillard, treasurer of Marin County Republicans, said “Consistent with California law, we oppose any race-based system for admission or financial aid. We support a merit based system for admission and financial aid for those that need it. We believe that is the best way to achieve a diverse society.”
