Mallika Seshadri

When Laura Swartzen saw the email from Sacramento State University’s Title IX office, it felt like her heart skipped a beat.

Swartzen, the Sac State confidential campus advocate, had spent the past nine months supporting a student who reported being sexually assaulted. Swartzen had listened to the student’s wrenching account, offered to connect them with medical and mental health care, and sat with them through an “incredibly draining” formal hearing.

Now, the Title IX office — which investiga

As California’s efforts to enshrine abortion access continue, the University of California and California State University are working to provide medication abortions on all campuses by Jan. 1.

So far, none of the Cal State campuses offer medication abortions, and access within the UC system varies from campus to campus. Both university systems, however, say they are on track to implement a law passed in 2019 requiring their student health centers to provide access to the pills.

As many as 6,2

Kathleen Coronado always assumed she would attend a four-year university right after high school.

But when the coronavirus pandemic struck and she was forced to learn online, Coronado saw her motivation dwindle. So did her confidence in being able to afford the cost of going to college.

“COVID really stopped that for me,” Coronado said. “It made me lose some of my motivation.”

Then, at the beginning of her senior year, she learned Modesto Junior College would waive her tuition under its “Free

After a couple years of living with COVID-19, UC Santa Barbara student Alex Niles heard about the monkeypox outbreak. “Here we go again,” he thought.

Niles, who is president of the UC Student Association, knew monkeypox was transmitted very differently than COVID-19 and generally posed less risk. But he began to notice concern percolating within UC Santa Barbara’s student body.

“There’s a good share of folks who are definitely like ‘OK, I’m going to get vaccinated, I’m going to start taking pr

Richard Lim was walking along a quiet sidewalk near UC Berkeley’s fraternity row last summer when, he said, two men called out to him.

“Hey Coronavirus, why don’t you take yourself and go home,” they shouted at the Asian American Studies graduate student, who was wearing a mask. “You don’t want to contaminate anyone.”

Even within his own family, the racist harassment Lim faced was not unique. His aunt, who works at an Asian supermarket, had also experienced racist verbal attacks, making her an

International students forced to return to their home countries. Low-income students losing the jobs that kept them afloat. Professors and students alike pushed off campus and adjusting to virtual learning, sometimes without access to the technology they needed. The coronavirus pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of California higher education as we knew it. In the economy, it also marked the beginning of what some observers have deemed the “Great Pause,” a time for individuals and businesses