By Lev Farris Goldenberg
Free City is safe, for now.
According to new City College Chancellor Kimberlee Messina, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s recently passed city budget will provide sufficient funding to cover free tuition for all San Francisco residents for the 2025-26 school year.
Next year, however, the funding could be cut further. Mayor Lurie’s proposed budget for 2026-27 only sets aside $7.15 million for Free City.
“We have this coming year to see how the City budget shakes out, and work with our City leaders and hopefully help them see how important that is to City College,” Messina said.
Stable, but for How Long?
The $15.9 billion budget Lurie signed in July eliminates nearly 1,400 city jobs, lays off nearly 100 city employees and cuts nonprofit spending by $200 million over two years, all in an effort to close the City’s $800 million deficit. Lurie’s budget also sets aside $400 million in anticipation of federal funding cuts.
Despite other cuts, the Free City program will retain the same funding level as last year, $9.3 million. That amount represents a 50% cut from prior funding levels, after former Mayor London Breed slashed support for Free City from $18.9 million in 2023-24 to $9.3 million in 2024-25.
According to Wong, the $9.3 million appropriated for the coming year is “just enough” to cover tuition. Any further cuts, and City College might have to decide which students and which courses remain eligible for free enrollment.
“I am incredibly grateful that Mayor Lurie’s office retained our current funding levels,” Wong said. “However, I’m still pushing to ensure that we continue with the 2019 agreement that funded the Free City College program.”
Wong, students and faculty have called for Lurie to reinstate the previous levels of funding laid out in a 2019 agreement between City College and the City and County of San Francisco. The agreement set forth a 10-year plan to fund Free City College, stipulating that the program would receive $15 million in 2019-20, with annual adjustments for inflation until 2029.
But halfway through the agreement’s term, and with a new mayor in City Hall, the fight to maintain City College’s free-tuition program is ongoing
The Push to Save the Program
When Breed abruptly cut Free City’s funding in 2024, advocacy groups rallied.
“We’re always concerned if we’re going to lose funding because we know that that’s really important to our students, because most of our students are first-gen students and really need that support to have free fees,” Chancellor Messina said.
The fight to defend Free City continued into the budget battle with Lurie earlier this summer.
“It took a lot of advocacy just to make sure that we’re back to the 50% funding level of what we used to have for Free City College,” said Anya Worley-Ziegmann of the People’s Budget Coalition. “We’re in a really dangerous position and it’s a really disappointing place to be.”
The People’s Budget partnered with the Free City Coalition – which includes faculty union AFT 2121 and student group Protect Free City, among others – to lobby City Hall during the budget fight earlier this summer.
Rheana Montero, a second-year Sexual Health Education major at City College, is a member of Protect Free City, and one of the program’s many beneficiaries.
“I personally wouldn’t be in college if it weren’t for Free City,” Montero said. “It’s hard for me to make a decent income, to go to school, and to support my family simultaneously,” Montero explained. “At least with my tuition being covered under the Free City program, I can just think about my finances only for family, and not for family and school.”
According to AFT 2121, Free City has served over 120,000 San Francisco residents since its inception in 2017. Many of them, Montero says, need assistance beyond just free tuition.
“We have single parents, first-generation (students), people going back to school and senior citizens benefitting from the Free City College program. They’re emotionally distressed right now because of the uncertainty with the budget.”
Wong noted that the new budget will not provide Free City with additional funding to support the basic needs of students and increase access to education as it has in past years.
“Debt relief, support for basic needs… we would like to tap into Free City for those services,” Chancellor Messina said.
In 2023, Free City provided debt relief to over 13,000 City College students thanks to a $2.1 million allocation in the City budget. The move lifted the holds on students’ accounts and allowed thousands of San Francisco residents to be able to enroll in classes.
“We’re going to have to come back year after year after year, to keep fighting this fight for Free City,” Worley-Ziegmann said. “Which is sort of the moment that we’re in right now as a City – essential programs are being threatened every year when there are budget cuts.”
Meanwhile, departments that saw no cuts or received increases in funding include Police, Sheriff, and District Attorney. SFPD will receive $27 million in additional funds, amid recent reports that the police department abused overtime pay and shared surveillance camera data with several federal agencies.