On Tuesday March 4th, 2025, a coalition of students, staff, faculty, labor unions, and education advocates will march in Sacramento carrying the message that the state must protect its students, safeguard higher education faculty and staff, and secure California’s future in what is called “the March in March.” The March takes on a greater heft as the kind of necessary response to the Trump Administration’s decidedly anti-education agenda, with the American Federation of Teachers having declared March 4th a National Day of Action.

The March in March has a history extending back to 2009, when higher ed students incensed by a combination of budget cuts combined with tuition increases organized and brought 5,000 students and advocates to the state capitol to demand both relief and needed funding for public higher ed, and with good reason. In 2009, tuition for UCs and Community Colleges, tuition jumped by 30% while funding was cut to each system by over 800 million dollars from the year before.

In 2010, CA legislative actions were even more severe, leading to over 8,000 students turning out in Sacramento for the second march. Ultimately, the combination of tuitions increases and cuts to spending effectively created a protest era, with some 13,000 students showing up at the March in 2011. Further momentum for change came with the Occupy Movement protests in the Fall of 2011.

By February 2012 there was a California Federation of Teacher’s petition drive for a “Millionaire’s Tax” which would place a permanent state income tax increase of 3% on those with incomes over $1 million and 5% on incomes over $2 million. Then Governor Jerry Brown had proposed a weaker proposition tied to cuts to Medi-Cal and CALWorks, which serve the poorest and unemployed Californians, yet in just one month over 500,000 signatures had been collected and 10,000 students gathered for the March in March. Feeling the pressure to do more, Brown pushed for a compromise with CFT, leading to the creation of Proposition 30, a temporary measure to increase state incomes taxes on those with annual incomes over $500,000/year from 1-3%, which then passed in in November of that year.

While the effects of the measure did not result in an immediate return of lost funding, it did stem the bleeding that could be witnessed when colleges cuts class sections, leaving most students struggling to find open classes, and many placing their names in futility on waitlists commonly over ten students long. Classes returned, as did the overwhelmingly contingent faculty who had lost their jobs, and staff.

In 2016, a follow-up measure meant to extend the tax, Proposition 55 was passed by a 26% margin, extending the Prop 30 tax measures to 2030.

The point here was that the March in March along with follow-up concerted action worked, but now this action is needed more than ever.

In 2013, the March numbers dropped to just 3,000 and the event went dormant until last year.

That said, the problems that plague California higher education are serious.

The “windfall” of Prop 30 and Prop 55’s passage secured monies to provide the classes students needed, and to some extent helped fund the College Promise Grants which allow full-time community college students to attend tuition-free, but it hasn’t been able to address the increasing food and housing and basic needs insecurity which collectively effects 66% of all community college students. Wages in general have increased, but not enough against inflation, and approximately 68% of community college faculty work on a contingent status, paid usually less than half of their full-time tenured counterparts, with limited to no job security and benefits—a percentage that has not budged in over 20 years. Surveys have consistently shown that nationwide, 25% of these faculty receive some kind of public assistance, with some even unhoused.

It should be noted these same faculty lack “just cause” provisions, a key component to the concept of Academic Freedom, which even Tenured faculty are losing in states like Florida, Georgia, and Kansas.

Low wages and better opportunities have led to a massive drop off in classified staff, leaving colleges short of necessary staff that can make the difference between student success or failure. Loss of staff and limits to funding have led to a backlog of facilities issues, from poor plumbing to dysfunctional HVAC systems which freeze or roast students and workers alike, to faulty internet and WIFI.

More troubling yet are the working conditions of campus hourly workers, often limited to wages at or just above the minimum wage and kept to under 20 hours a week. Notably, the UC System is not required to follow the California Labor Code, meaning it is not required to abide by minimum wage or overtime pay laws.

The Trump Administration’s actions with regard to DEI, as well as trans, LGTBQ+, and immigrant students have already created a climate of fear and dread. It should be noted that these same student populations were already the most at risk for basic needs insecurity. On top of all this, as the LA fires most recently reminded us, this is all amid a Climate Crisis which most profoundly affects future generations.

If all of this is not enough to create an imperative for action, then what does?

In California, the years 2009-2013 showed the revival of a culture of student protest, echoing back to the early 1990’s, and before that the 1960’s. If California students, faculty, staff, labor, and the community at large want to reclaim the promise of what California has been and could yet be, it needs to take up and support actions like the March in March, which have shown we can win.

Be with us on March 4th in person or in spirit—the future of California Higher Ed depends upon it.

Geoff Johnson is Southeast San Diego resident and a contingent professor of English and Humanities at San Diego Mesa and Southwestern Colleges. He is also President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus, and organizer with the March in March, advocating for student affordability, access, academic freedom, and worker rights for all higher ed workers.