California Lutheran Universityโs five-year, $1,540,875 TRIO Student Support Services grant has been renewed through 2030, according to Cal Lutheran News. This grant is to fund the continuation of SSS, which, according to the Cal Lutheran website, supports first-generation and income-qualified students as well as students with disabilities.
According to Monica Madrigal, director of Student Support Services and the McNair Scholars Program, the grant must be renewed every five years. They began the writing process during the summer of 2024 and found out about the approval in July 2025.
โWe are very lucky to continue SSS here at Cal Lutheran,โ Madrigal said. โHaving had been a staff member for almost 15 years, Iโm able to see the growth within students and how much, you know, these programs help students during their journey in college.โ
The grant is said to serve 206 students annually, the press release said.
Madrigal said some of the benefits that SSS provides to their students are offering priority registration for classes, workshops, free peer tutoring, exclusive time to meet with the SSS counselors, a home to spend downtime in and more.
โI would like to call us more like taking a holistic approach,โ Madrigal said. โStudents are not just coming in and leaving. Theyโre coming in and weโre establishing connections and relationships with them, making sure that itโs more than just their academics.โ
Within the renewal process, Madrigal said there were worries along the way as there were uncertainties about the future of funding for programs such as SSS and Hispanic-Serving Institutions as a whole. Cal Lutheran has been an HSI since 2016, according to the universityโs website.
โWe did not know what was going to happen. There was a lot of talk about, you know, TRIO not being renewed, grants not being renewed, with everything happening in the world really, we didn’t know where things were gonna go,โ Madrigal said.
According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration plans to cut $250 million out of what was budgeted for the government’s program that funds Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
Though SSS is a part of TRIO and is not funded through HSI grants, Madrigal said it is โdefinitely scary.โ
โBeing an HSI gives us a lot of resources,โ Madrigal said. โItโs just pretty upsetting. Itโs sad to know that this is coming and I know that itโll probably affect all of us.โ
Despite the uncertainties that Madrigal mentioned, Lauren Causey, executive director of the Office of Sponsored Research and Projects, said in an email interview that the university will remain prepared.
โCal Lutheran is resilient and has wonderful leaders. Weโre in a great place to be able to withstand any upcoming changes, if they happen,โ Causey said.
Madrigal said she and Causey worked together on the grants renewal process, with Causey taking the lead on writing the proposal. Causey and her department handle all grants within the university. She said part of this is managing the responsibilities that lead up to receiving the grant.
โOur group handles โpre-awardโ duties, which is everything leading up to the submission of a grant application to a funding agency,โ Causey said.
For this grant specifically, Causey said she attended a two-day proposal writing workshop in Philadelphia, hosted by the Council for Opportunity in Education and collected data with Cal Lutheran’s Educational Equity and Institutional Research office for weeks to explain what data would be needed to numerically describe the situation of the university best.
โThe TRIO SSS grant is so important to our campus,โ Causey said. โWhen we developed the proposal, we used every resource possible to ensure there would be a good outcome.โ
Though the grant does not provide scholarships for students, Madrigal said the grantโs main goal is to continue funding SSS, but to also focus on their studentsโ social and emotional well-being, as well as ensuring transfer students are supported.
โI feel like here, I have a safe place and I could always come and ask them anything and I would just have the support from them,โ said senior Jazmin Garcia, a student intern for SSS.
Garcia said the resources that SSS provides will continue to impact future students. According to Garcia, she often hears students walk into the office and talk about how SSS is important to them, as many of the students donโt have anyone at home who they can get help from and talk about college with.
โIt just makes me think more about how important it is and how lucky I am to be a part of SSS,โ Garcia said. โI just canโt imagine my college time here without these programs.โ
