For months, California’s public higher education institutions have prepared for deep state funding cuts, fearing that it will lead to a decrease in student services, course supply and even enrollment.

The two systems are facing $771 million cuts in Gov. Gavin Newsom's January budget proposal. Faculty, students and faculty gathered in Sacramento and asked lawmakers to abandon the state's higher education system, saying the proposed cuts would be "disastrous" and would have a "deep impact" on education, a cut to thousands of cuts to federal research and other grants ordered by the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, educators were somewhat relieved. Next year outlines an additional $12 billion state budget shortage next year - What makes it worse because President Trump's tariffs have proposed that the governor's revised budget has lowered the early blow to higher education, thus reducing cuts in higher education.

The proposed University of California layoffs fell from $397 million in January to $130 million four months later, a 3% cut in the budget. For California State University, Newsom's budget cuts rose from $375 million in January to $144 million, also down 3%.

UC Chairman Michael V. Drake said Newsom's revised budget "represents a significant improvement in January's budget" and spoke at the UC Regents meeting on Wednesday in San Francisco. “It means so much at this moment when the country is facing a tough budget choice.”

Drake added in a statement that the proposed budget “maximizes critical cuts in student support services and retains critical investments such as affordable student housing construction.”

As previously announced, the governor also said he wanted to postpone the system's annual 5% budget growth, part of the state's years of compactness. The agreement says UC and CSU will receive more state funding in exchange for reaching certain goals, such as increasing enrollment rates and underserved backgrounds for Californians.

"California is under attack ... we have the advantage of a reckless president and other countries," Newsom said Wednesday.

However, his revised budget proposal lists billions of dollars in other areas, including free health care for low-income undocumented immigrants.

The budget is not the last word of Sacramento’s support for UC and CSU. Negotiations continued until June 15, with the Legislature passing the deadline for its budget adoption before the governor signed it.

Nevertheless, the two university systems have already mitigated the two university systems amid the imminent national budget cuts and reduced federal research funding. In addition, the Trump administration’s investigation may lead to further avoidance of federal support. Both UC and CSU recruited freezes, layoffs hitting CSU campuses, including those in Dominguez Hills and Sacramento.

The Trump administration has cut more than $300 million in research and other grants to California higher education institutions, including Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team’s recommendation to cancel grants for programs related to competition and LGBTQ+. The additional cuts are being contested in court.

Less state funding, along with higher costs, is driven primarily by increased staff and employee compensation, larger retirement plan contributions and more expensive health care, and is expected to result in a UC budget bonus of about $5 billion even before Trump takes office.

UC's core budget is about $11 billion, with more than 40% coming from the state, with tuition and fees covering the majority of the rest. Its overall operating budget, including its health system, is over $53 billion.

Kathleen Fullerton, UC's vice president of government relations, said in an interview that the budget proposal was "much better" than the university envisioned a few weeks ago. “It’s shocking news for me,” she said. ”

"There are other issues," Fullerton said. "Yes, the uncertainty of federal funding will not change. The rising costs will not change. But I hope that this can really help us minimize harmful effects."

In a statement, CSU President Mildred Garcia praised Newsom for “taking a thoughtful and measured approach to the state’s fiscal challenges while recognizing that higher education institutions, especially CSU, play a unique and valuable role in promoting California’s workforce and economy.”

"However, I must emphasize that CSU's budget challenges remain-challenged the actual and potential federal investment in higher education," she said. "It is still necessary to reduce the painful costs, and they will be felt in everyone on the 23 CSU campuses and in the Prime Minister's Office."

CSU’s core budget is about $9 billion, and it relies more on state funds than UC. About 60% of the CSU core budget comes from the state, with the rest mainly composed of tuition and fees.

Both university systems are continuing to advocate for more funding from state and federal sources through other means.

This includes supporting a ruling against the Trump administration’s grants to various federal agencies, as well as advocating for new solutions to address budgets.

For example, UC is supporting California Senate Bill 829 to create the California Institute of Science Research, similar to the state's National Institutes of Health, which will fund medical research. But the budget gap can be a legislative challenge. Researchers will hold a rally in San Francisco on Friday to support the bill, which will be present in the bill, and Scott Wiener (D-san Francisco) will be present.

Regent photographer Michael Cohen spoke at the University of California Regents’ Committee meeting on Wednesday in San Francisco, praising the idea as a way to “promote UC’s outstanding innovation and research performance.” He said the potential NES “resonates across the legislature, and it’s in an effort to oppose cuts.”