The mayor’s bad-news budget has come for City College.

Among a slew of cuts Mayor Daniel Lurie is proposing to plug a $643 million (opens in new tab) budget deficit starting in July, the mayor has pitched slashing funds for a stipend program for low-income City College students.

The program, called Free City, would see its funding reduced from $9.3 million to $6.4 million by eliminating cash grants that students use to pay for transportation, supplies, and other expenses. Qualifying students receive $46 per unit with a $552 cap per semester. 

Free City also provides tuition to city residents, and that will remain in place.

But losing the grant program would create a barrier for low-income students to enroll, students and faculty say. Roughly one-third of Free City students — about 6,000 (opens in new tab) — received a cash grant in the 2024-25 academic year.

San Francisco voters approved Free City in 2016 when they passed Proposition W, a real estate transfer tax. The program launched the following year and helped more than 20,000 students (opens in new tab) attend City College tuition-free last year.

“It’s crossing a line,” said Alisa Messer, a City College English instructor who sits on the Free City College Oversight Committee.

City College Chancellor Kimberly Messina said students enrolled through Free City tend to complete degrees at a higher rate than those who don’t, and that the cash grant program is a key way to keep the college accessible to low-income students, who can face barriers in receiving financial aid.

“We really are a place for second chances, for people to retrain, to gain economic mobility that often would not be open to them,” Messina said. 

Dozens of angry students and faculty spoke during a hearing Wednesday by the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee about the cuts.

Sabrina Hall, a student senator at City College, demanded the city maintain funding, calling it a “lifeline” for lower-income people to attain higher education and escape poverty.

“Free City is not a luxury. It’s not some extra disposable line item you can get to casually scratch away with a pen when your numbers get tight,” she said.

Others are stuck relying on benefits, including the cash grants, due to benefit income caps and life circumstances that prevent them from working.

Sofia Flores Guevara, 35, expects to graduate with an associate’s degree in business administration in 2028. She counts on the Free City program because she can work only 15 hours a week as a single mom with kids 12, 10, and 5. 

She relies on a $1,400-a-month stipend from CalWORKs, which provides access to Calfresh and MediCal benefits for food and healthcare for her and her kids. She buys their clothes and school supplies with the $500 cash grant she gets from Free City. If that goes away, she’ll find herself in a bind. If she works more to make up for the lost grant, the added income could make her ineligible for her CalWORKs benefits. So, her only option will be to buy less food so she can still make payments on her $1,400 three-bedroom apartment in the Bayview.

“For a few extra dollars, I’ll lose all my benefits,” she said. “So limited living it is.”

Supervisor Connie Chan, who called the hearing, and sits on the 14-person Free City board with Messer, said the grants are needed for low-income students who can’t afford to pay for supplies — and miss work — to attend City College, even if the classes are free.

“They can have free tuition, but that is just not enough to help them be successful in class,” she said. “Participation, it’s gonna drop off.”

While acknowledging the cuts, the mayor’s office said Lurie is earmarking $34 million in the upcoming budget to help low-income San Franciscans maintain access to other public benefits under threat from the Trump administration, which has made enrolling in programs like Medi-Cal and CalFresh more onerous in what critics have called a deliberate effort to prevent people from accessing public aid.

“As we work to deliver a responsible budget, we’ll also ensure City College students remain supported through the investments we’re making to strengthen San Francisco’s social safety net and protect core services,” Lurie said in a statement.