Hundreds of UC Santa Barbara students protest federal the Trump administration’s funding cuts

UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — “We had a really powerful rally in which people from all disciplines were there, both from the humanities, from the social sciences, and, of course, from the STEM research labs that are being actively defunded at the moment,” said UCSB PHD student Anam Mehta.
 
Graduate students like Ahmet Hatipoglu are on edge following President Trump’s recent executive orders.

“It's very devastating. Now I have to find like something maybe not career oriented, but just secure myself” said the Associate Staff Scientist.

The orders target the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation, while also dismantling the Department of Education.
 
“We come here to do life saving work that is hopefully beneficial for our general society, our population, everyone around the whole world, the federal government is saying that that work is unimportant, that that work is wasteful. And what they're actually doing, in effect, is taking away life saving resources from the working class peoples of this country,” said UCSB PHD student, Anam Mehta.

The most recent cuts will target research, health, and higher education, which may force many graduate students to change course.
 
“They may have to choose to master out instead of getting their Ph.D. And so it really is heavily affecting these people's careers,” said UCSB Graduate Student researcher, Madeline Vailhe.
 
Students here are worried that these federal cuts, aren’t just going to affect the grad students and the undergraduate students, but also the future of technological progress for decades to come.
 
“This is impacting, just knowledge production in general as well as cures for certain diseases, cancer research, Alzheimer's research, I do seismology research,” said UCSB Graduate Student, Keneni Godana.

Students are hopeful collective action will propel local and state leaders to protect higher education.