This post was updated Nov. 30 at 9:43 p.m.
A UC Board of Regents committee said Wednesday that it spent $3.2 billion on capital projects in the 2024-25 financial year.
The finance and capital strategies committee introduced its consolidated capital report with an overview of its current major systemwide capital projects at the Regents’ meeting, which was held Tuesday to Thursday at the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center.
The UC completed 150 projects costing more than $3.2 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year, and 408 projects – worth $23.8 billion – were in progress as of June 30, according to the report. Completed capital projects included the acquisition of eight new hospitals and the opening of an innovation hub tied to UC Davis – Aggie Square – in Sacramento, according to the report.
The committee also discussed the ongoing efforts to bring all facilities into compliance with the current UC Seismic Safety Policy, which lists requirements to ensure earthquake safety for students, staff and the public within all facilities. Since 2021, the University has reduced noncompliant building areas by 19%, according to the report.
Completing adjustments to ensure compliance across campuses and medical centers is predicted to cost around $13.2 billion, with $900 million of the work – 7% of the total – already secured in funding, according to the report.
The committee then turned to the University’s investment performance reports for the 2024-25 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Revenues supporting primary activities, including medical centers and student tuition, totaled $60.68 billion, while expenses associated with primary activities, such as costs for salaries and wages, totaled $59.09 billion to get income from primary activities totaling $1.59 billion, according to the financial report. This marks the first time since 2023 that the University has made a profit solely within primary activities before net appreciation of investments, according to the report.
The federal administration’s grant cuts across the UC were a source of fiscal uncertainty, said Barbara Cevallos, associate vice president and systemwide controller.
“The impacts of the grant terminations and other actions by the federal administration will be felt more significantly in 2026 and beyond,” she said.
The Trump administration froze $584 million of UCLA’s research funding in late July, citing “antisemitism and bias.” But the federal government had also pulled grants from UCLA before its mass suspension this summer – and has cut funding from other UC campuses, including UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.
In June, a federal district court judge sided with researchers from UC Berkeley and UCSF, ordering the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Environmental Protection Agency to reinstate the UC researchers’ cut grants and cease from cutting their grants in the future. The same judge extended the order to include UCLA’s frozen NSF and National Institutes of Health grants in August and September, respectively, temporarily reinstating the grants while the case moves through the courts.
[Related: Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore $500M of UCLA research grants]
The Regents then approved the University’s Budget for Current Operations for the upcoming year.
Nathan Brostrom, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of the UC, said the UC received a $130 million, no-interest loan from the state. The University made an emergency request to the state for the sum earlier this month due to budget shortfalls, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Brostrom alleged that the state has not funded the UC enough under the multiyear compact between the University and California. The five-year compact between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the University outlines standards the UC must meet to receive funding from the state, according to the document, including increasing its enrollment of Californians.
“We have grown our resident California undergraduate enrollment by nearly 15,000 students,” Brostrom said. “This would enable us to exceed the goals of the compact one year ahead of its item.”
Brostrom said the state has not provided the University with the annual funding outlined in the compact, despite the UC surpassing the in-state enrollment goals.
The state provided near-expected funding from 2022 to 2024, but has provided less than half of the expected funding since then, according to the report. The $400 million deficit from expected state funding since 2024 will be compensated over the next three years, Brostrom said.
The budget plan requests $28.9 million in state funding to balance the cost of enrolling 902 additional in-state students instead of nonresidents at three UCs – including UCLA – according to the report.
Caín Díaz, the associate vice president of budget analysis and planning, said investments for the 2026-27 fiscal year center around various categories, including sustaining core operations, student financial aid and high-priority investments.
The investments committee also convened to discuss the first quarter performance of UC retirement, endowment and working capital assets for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Jagdeep Singh Bachher, the UC’s chief investment officer, said his previous prediction made during the July Regents meeting – $200 billion in assets by late September – has been surpassed, as investments totaled $209 billion Sept. 30.
Bachher added that the Blue and Gold Endowment Pool, a low-cost investment pool in the UC portfolio, has been the University’s highest-performing financial product for the past five years. Some UCLA faculty advocated for the UC to leverage the fund to provide money for students and researchers amid the federal funding freeze.
[Related: UC Faculty propose multi-billion dollar fund in response to federal funding freeze]
The asset allocation of the UC investments is split into four categories: public equity, fixed income, private assets and cash, Bachher said.
“The inspiration for this year’s annual report … is doing simple, better,” he said.
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