Del Norte County sits on the Oregon line, has more redwoods than people, and is nearly two hours by car from the closest community college. Its students are chronically absent at high rates and among the least likely in California to finish a bachelor's degree.

For years, one federal program put college on their radar at all. Last September it was cancelled.

What TRIO is, and what was done to it

TRIO is not an acronym. It is named for the three original programs — Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services — created during the War on Poverty to give low-income, first-generation students college counseling and academic support. Campus tours. Help filling out applications. Financial aid workshops. Someone who knows your name.

In its push against diversity and equity programs, the U.S. Department of Education cancelled more than $40 million in funding for over 100 TRIO programs serving nearly 45,000 students nationwide.

In California, historically the state with the most TRIO grants, 13 colleges and universities lost 19 TRIO programs, more than $6 million in funding, and services for 7,000 students.

The reasons the department gave

Staff at two California universities confirmed why their grants were terminated. The stated grounds are worth reading twice.

At Cal Poly Humboldt, the Department of Education's primary reason was a goal written into the grant: to train students to be aware of microaggressions and systemic racism.

At Cal Poly Pomona, the department objected to the program's goal of having a fair mix of grades, genders, and students with disabilities among its student cohorts.

That is the case for cutting off the more than 500 middle and high schoolers Cal Poly Humboldt served across one of the most isolated corners of California: a line about awareness training. At Cal Poly Pomona, it was a line about including students with disabilities.

Cal Poly Pomona has submitted three requests for reconsideration. It has received three denials.

What it cost the people it was cut from

Julie Aicher was the Cal Poly Humboldt adviser working with more than 500 disadvantaged middle and high school students across the rural North Coast when the notice came.

"It was really heartbreaking when we found out. I definitely cried when we told our students."

Her colleague Sofia Santos-Arriola said the mid-cycle cancellation left students "high and dry":

"This does seem like it was so directly targeted against poor people, against first-generation immigrants, against first-generation college [students]."

Rama Rawal, who directs Cal Poly Humboldt's TRIO program, said anything the university can offer instead is "a bandaid" next to the long-term rapport the advisers had built with students and school staff.

"We're talking about close to $2 million worth of resources that were lost. That can't just appear."

Aicher and Santos-Arriola were both hired afterward by the Del Norte County Office of Education as college-career advisers. Their caseloads tripled.

"Our TRIO students are the ones hurting — they are not getting the same attention and prioritization," Santos-Arriola said. "I'm starting to forget my TRIO students' names, and it's heartbreaking, because they were our kids for so long."

Rural students are less likely to enroll in college, less likely to graduate, and more likely to come from households in poverty and without internet access. In those places, TRIO advocates say, TRIO was often the only organized source of college counseling, financial aid help and campus visits.

As Rawal put it: "They are oftentimes in communities where the college-going culture isn't really a thing. They are in a remote place where [without TRIO], the access is gone for that exposure."

Courts pushed back. The administration is going bigger anyway.

The Council for Opportunity in Education brought two lawsuits over the terminations last year, and a court order led the administration to restore funding to more than 30 of the cancelled programs — though the order did not require it to. Dozens more, including several California schools, are still waiting for their funding to be lawfully reconsidered.

While that plays out, the Department of Education's fiscal 2027 budget, released in April 2026, proposes eliminating all $1.2 billion in TRIO funding, calling it and similar programs ineffective, redundant, or "unconstitutional," as part of a push to "return education to the states."

At a Senate subcommittee hearing in late April, Education Secretary Linda McMahon argued TRIO should be reoriented away from getting students into college:

"There might be alternatives to higher education other than college, given that we do have a lack of a skilled workforce in the country."

Management of TRIO grants was moved to the Department of Labor under a partnership announced in March, and the two grant cycles run since have added priorities for apprenticeships and skilled trades.

Mary Claire Gager, Cal Poly Pomona's associate executive director of TRIO pre-college programs, on what that changes:

"TRIO grants were never designed or intended to be just job training… It was always about accessing higher education in some form. We build a better society, and we build better students and better people, by expanding their horizons beyond just getting a job."

This is the same department Republicans in Congress have been taking apart around it. Congress put in writing that handing the Education Department's jobs to other agencies was illegal, then let it happen anyway, and one North Carolina Republican personally wrote two of the ten bills to dismantle it.

What it adds up to

The Education Department cancelled more than $40 million for over 100 TRIO programs that served nearly 45,000 low-income, first-generation students, citing grant language about microaggressions in one case and about including students with disabilities in another. California lost $6 million, 19 programs and services for 7,000 students. In Del Norte County, two hours from the nearest community college, the advisers who did that work now carry triple the caseload at the county office and say they are forgetting their former students' names. The administration's 2027 budget proposes eliminating the program entirely.

Source

Kahani Malhotra, Trump cuts to these college outreach programs are hurting rural California students, CalMatters College Journalism Network, August 29, 2026. Photo via Cal Poly Humboldt.