Watch the Regents Meetings of January 20, 2026

We are catching up with the Regents last week. On January 20th, the meeting began with public comments. Topics included women's sports at Davis, union negotiations for interns and residents, climate change, rents and UC investments, NSF targeting of climate grants, food insecurity of grad students including undocumented, anti-Israel, handling of undocumented student data, exams for disabled students, and student dining workers. 

Thereafter, the Health Services Committee handled an executive appointment. There was discussion of outreach to attract UC employees to UC health plans including dedicated phone lines and quicker access to open medical appointments. There was also discussion of students who were eligible for Medi-Cal (at least 7% of students) with regard to student health services.

The full board then convened. Chair Reilly thanked the governor for his budget proposal and said nice things about shared governance in working on speeding up faculty discipline (to be taken up the next day). President Milliken discussed federal cuts and litigation, thanked the governor for his budget, and expressed concern about international students and H-1B visas. Faculty Representative Palazoglu also expressed concerns about Trump-related issues and academic freedom. This was followed by a presentation on cancer research illustrated by a case study.

The Accountability report presentation noted an increase in enrollment, improvement in 4-year graduation rates, upward mobility of students, but also concerns about federal policy. 

At the National Labs committee, all three labor had high performance ratings. It was noted that Lawrence Berkeley's current contract ends on May 31, 2030 and Lawrence Livermore on Sept. 30, 2031 with a possible one year extension. Los Alamos goes through Oct. 31, 2028. (The first two, it might be noted, extend beyond the current presidential term; the last does not.)

The Governance Committee adjusted some meeting dates for the Regents.

Public Engagement and Development heard a review of UCLA's green sustainable landscaping program and its use of native plants. There was a presentation by the UC Latinx Alumni Association on its activities. Finally, the student observer suggested post-graduation support for past students by alumni.

As always, we preserve Regents meetings since the Regents have no preservation policy. The meeting can be seen at the links below:

General link for the entire meeting: https://archive.org/details/1-regents-health-services-committee-public-comment-1-20-2026

Public comments, Health Services: https://ia801701.us.archive.org/32/items/1-regents-health-services-committee-public-comment-1-20-2026/1-Regents%20-%20Health%20Services%20Committee%20-%20Public%20Comment%201-20-2026.mp4

Health Services resumes, National Labs, Governance: https://ia601701.us.archive.org/32/items/1-regents-health-services-committee-public-comment-1-20-2026/2-Regents%20Health%20Services%20Committee%201_30%20PM%2C%20Board%2C%20National%20Labs%2C%20Governance%201-20-2026.mp4

Public Engagement and Development: https://ia801701.us.archive.org/32/items/1-regents-health-services-committee-public-comment-1-20-2026/3-Regents%20Public%20Engagement%20and%20Development%201-20-2026.mp4.

Straws in the Wind - Part 236 (Compact 2.0)

From the NY Times: ...Trump aides ...are readying a second attempt to persuade universities to sign on to a voluntary “compact” that follows a list of the administration’s principles, officials said. The first version got little traction. The White House is also examining how to enforce individual provisions, regardless of whether schools sign on, said May Mailman, the White House’s senior adviser for special projects. Ms. Mailman said Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on universities had been “far greater than anyone could have expected.” ...

...One line item that the administration has already revived is a 15 percent cap on international students enrolled in undergraduate classes proposed by the compact. After the original proposal failed, the State Department began quietly prioritizing visa requests for students at schools under that 15 percent rate, Ms. Mailman, the White House adviser, said in an interview...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/us/politics/trump-higher-education-2025.html.

Former UCLA Law Dean Named Head of Columbia

From the Wall St. Journal: Columbia University has agreed to hire the leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to become its next president, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

The Ivy League school has selected Jennifer Mnookin, who has led UW-Madison since 2022, to take the reins at Columbia sometime this year, the person said.

Mnookin led Wisconsin through a tumultuous period in higher education and rose to the top of a large candidate pool because of her success navigating polarized politics in Wisconsin and dealing with the federal government, the person added. Before leading UW-Madison, she was dean of UCLA’s law school and, before that, a law professor at the University of Virginia...

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-president-jennifer-mnookin-wisconsin-madison-6e38c62d.

Bubble Worries

As we have noted on this blog, state revenues have come in ahead of projections thanks - it appears - to capital gains tax receipts related to AI-related stock.

The governor based his January budget on good revenue news continuing and was criticized by the Legislative Analyst and others for not taking account of the possibility that an AI bubble will burst, or at least the good revenue news won't continue.

If you want to worry about all of that, and what it could mean for the UC budget, consider this from the Washington Post:

Big Tech is taking on record levels of debt, marking a new chapter in the artificial intelligence boom as names like Oracle, Alphabet and Meta pour big money into massive data centers and the energy systems needed to run them.

Technology companies issued a record $108.7 billion in corporate bonds in the last three months of 2025, according to data from Moody’s Analytics. That’s the largest total for any quarter and roughly double that of the previous three months. And the trend is extending into 2026: Some $15.5 billion in bonds were issued in the first two weeks alone.

For now, investors are assuaged by the eye-popping cash flow numbers from major tech companies. In the past 20 years, Big Tech companies including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Apple have built what are arguably the most profitable business models in history. In the third quarter, Google brought in just over $100 billion, with a margin of over 30 percent. All five are trillion-dollar companies, as are such AI darlings as Nvidia, Broadcom and TSMC.

But some economists and business analysts say the massive new bonds are spreading risk throughout the economy, with hundreds of billions being spent on a technology whose profit-making potential is not yet clear.

“It’s a lot of debt, and a lot of it all of a sudden,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s. When companies are funding risky ventures with debt “it does put the broader financial system at risk. If the financial system is at risk, then the broader economy is.” ...

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/23/ai-corporate-debt-record/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 235

From Inside Higher Ed: Education Secretary Linda McMahon and her legal team have dropped their appeal of a federal court ruling that blocked the department from requiring colleges to eradicate all race-based curriculum, financial aid and student services or lose federal funding. The motion to dismiss was jointly approved by both parties in the case Wednesday, ending a nearly yearlong court battle over the department’s Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter that declared race-based programming and policies illegal. If institutions didn’t comply within two weeks, department officials threatened to open investigations and rescind federal funding. In response, colleges closed offices related to diversity, equity and inclusion; scrubbed websites; and cut other programming.

First Amendment advocacy groups and the DEI leaders who remain in higher ed declared it a major victory for public education. Democracy Forward, the legal group that represented educators in the case, went as far as to say that it marks the “final defeat” of Trump’s effort to censor lessons and scrub student support programs...

Colleges and universities aren’t entirely in the clear, though. Just days before the Maryland District Court issued its ruling on the ED letter, the Department of Justice released its own nine-page memo on DEI. That guidance, which went even further than ED’s guidance, said that basing services on stand-ins for race—like “lived experience,” “cultural competence” and living in a minority-heavy geographic area—could also violate federal civil rights laws. In response, colleges have closed campus centers and publications cater to certain racial or ethnic groups...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2026/01/22/ed-drops-appeal-order-blocking-anti-dei-guidance.

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From the Cornell Daily Sun: A federal judge ruled... that an antitrust lawsuit filed four years ago against Cornell and 16 other elite colleges and universities must proceed to trial. The lawsuit alleges that the schools conspired to reduce financial aid and favor wealthy students. The suit also alleges that Cornell, through a now-defunct organization of 30 elite universities known as the 568 Presidents’ Group, conspired to reduce financial aid in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The 1890 act prohibits monopolies by restricting collusion that might limit competition. 

Specifically, the plaintiffs argue that Cornell and other universities worked together to ensure that financial aid pricing was similar between institutions. Because similar pricing of aid across universities was less than what the aid would have been without collaboration, the plaintiffs argue, the 538 Presidents Group ultimately favored wealthy students by increasing the overall cost of attendance. The 568 Presidents’ Group was named after Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994. The section was an exemption to the Sherman Antitrust Act that allowed need-blind institutions to collaborate on financial aid principles to ensure financial aid was similar among universities. The group disbanded in 2022 after its namesake section expired and amid the filing of this suit alleging misuse.

However, the plaintiffs, a group of alumni from the 17 elite universities, allege that the universities listed in the suit are not protected under Section 568 because they did not behave in a way that was truly need-blind...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/01/federal-judge-rules-financial-aid-lawsuit-against-cornell-must-proceed.

ICE Matters

From an email circulated on campus last week:

The university asks that you be guided by the following in the event of immigration enforcement activity on campus:

1. Please notify UCPD at 310-825-1491 as soon as possible if you are advised that an immigration officer is expected to enter, will enter or has entered the campus to execute a federal immigration order.
2. Students, academic employees and staff responding to or having contact with an immigration officer executing a federal immigration order should contact UCPD at 310-825-1491 and campus counsel at 310-825-3828 for purposes of verifying the legality of any warrant, court order or subpoena. Inform the officer that you are not obstructing their access but are following campus protocol.
3. UCLA Student Affairs, Academic Affairs and Personnel and Employee and Labor Relations are available as contacts if you are or may be subject to an immigration order or inquiry on campus. Unless permitted by federal and state education privacy laws, these designees are prohibited from discussing your personal information, including immigration status, with or revealing that personal information to anyone. Please contact:

• Students: Dean@saonet.ucla.edu 
• Academic employees: apoSB98notice@conet.ucla.edu 
• Staff: Employee.Relations@chr.ucla.edu

Some day

From the LA Times: ...Metro’s board of directors unanimously approved an underground heavy-rail option Thursday that would go from Van Nuys to Sherman Oaks, pass under the mountains and Bel Air, stop at UCLA and ultimately end at the E Line/Expo Sepulveda station. The option, which was pushed forward by Metro’s planning and programming committee last week, eliminates a controversial monorail proposal through the Sepulveda Pass and bypasses a stop at the Getty Center, which had been under consideration...

The estimated cost of the project has ballooned since 2016, when voters approved transit improvements between the Valley and the Westside under Measure M. At the time, the project was slated as $6 billion, then grew to an estimate of $9.4 billion to $13.8 billion with a completion goal of 2033. Metro does not have an estimate for the current modified proposal. A previous version estimated a price tag of about $24.2 billion, but Metro said that wasn’t accurate for the new model...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-22/this-multibillion-dollar-transit-project-could-improve-traffic-across-la-it-goes-to-vote-today.