UCLA’s Early Care and Education centers will raise tuition, pause hiring for vacant positions and stop providing food for children in response to university-wide budget cuts, its executive director announced to families Thursday.

UCLA ECE will discontinue financial support for formula and diapers, and it will not backfill vacant staff positions starting July 1, UCLA ECE’s Executive Director Tashon McKeithan said in a Thursday email to parents. McKeithan said in the email that UCLA ECE – which provides child care to UCLA students, faculty and staff – will increase tuition across all age groups, including infant, toddler and preschool levels, by 4% for the 2026-27 academic year.

Tuition for infants and toddlers will cost around $3,300 and $3,000, respectively, for UCLA affiliates, McKeithan said in the email. Monthly tuition for infants will cost around $3,800 for non-UCLA affiliates, and tuition for toddlers will cost around $3,200, she added.

Campus administrators asked all university departments to reduce costs in response to UCLA’s ongoing budget deficit, McKeithan said in the email.

“These actions are necessary to align ongoing expenditures with available funding and to address structural deficit concerns in a responsible way,” McKeithan said in the email.

About 15 parents and their children protested outside of Chancellor Julio Frenk’s residence Tuesday morning, calling on the university to increase financial support for UCLA ECE. Participants placed signs reading, “Don’t forget the littlest Bruins” on strollers, while chanting “Fund ECE” around 7:22 a.m.

Children shook rattles and played drums throughout the protest.

“This decision shifts the daily burden of care, feeding children, supplying diapers, managing logistics, directly onto families,” said Miriam Torres Sanchez, a parent and graduate student in urban and regional planning, in a speech. “For many of us, that’s not just inconvenient – it’s destabilizing.”

UCLA Media Relations did not respond in time to a request for comment on the elimination of UCLA ECE’s food program services.

UCLA has a projected $220 million deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year, said Reem Hanna-Harwell, who was appointed as UCLA’s interim chief financial officer in February, in a March 26 campuswide email.

Hanna-Harwell’s estimate came more than a month after Stephen Agostini, UCLA’s former CFO, alleged to the Daily Bruin that university administrators’ financial mismanagement led the university to incur a $425 million annual deficit. Hanna-Harwell said in her March 26 email that previous UCLA budget estimates were misleading because they included spending requests that had not yet been approved.

Frenk announced Agostini was out as UCLA’s CFO four days after The Bruin published his allegations.

[Related: Interim CFO says UCLA’s budget deficit is markedly lower than previous estimates]

UCLA also will close one of ECE’s two on-campus centers – the Fernald Center – in early September. Georgia Ann Lazo, the associate dean of University Partnership Schools, and Tina Christie, the dean of the School of Education and Information Studies, said in a March 2025 email obtained by the Daily Bruin that budget issues led to the center’s closure.

[Related: UCLA child care center to close, attendees to move to Krieger Center in September]

ECE has also dealt with blowback from parents after one of its teachers was arrested for child sexual abuse in 2024 and sentenced to seven years in jail in June. The teacher, Christopher Rodriguez, filed to appeal his conviction and was later released on bond but did not show up to a scheduled court appearance – which families alleged ECE did not update them on.

Stephanie Gomez, whose child is enrolled in UCLA ECE and whose husband attends graduate school at UCLA, said she credits the daycare’s resources for helping her and her husband advance their education and careers. The cuts will force them to absorb rising costs for food at home, added Gomez, who attended the protest.

“For kids that may or may not have equal access at home to nutritious food, they get that at school,” Gomez said. “With these cuts, that won’t be the case anymore.”

Abdullah Puckett, a doctoral student in anthropology who attended the protest, said UCLA ECE’s daycare services allowed him to work toward completing his degree while managing his responsibilities as a parent. Puckett added that he believes the university should prioritize funding UCLA ECE if it wants to attract top-tier faculty and students.

Tirzah Blanche, a graduate student in social work and ECE parent, said she believes UCLA does not see parenting students and child care as a priority. Blanche, who said she often takes 8 a.m. classes, added that she will now have to budget extra time to prepare breakfast, lunch and snacks for her child.

Torres Sanchez said the daycare’s resources helped relieve her stress as a single parent.

“Cutting ECE is only going to harm UCLA, harm the littlest learners in our community, harm the families that have it hard enough,” Blanche said.

A UCLA associate professor and parent, who was granted anonymity out of fear of retaliation from the university, said the elimination of ECE’s food service programs could burden the center’s teachers, who manage the children’s meals and keep track of their belongings.

“The blow to morale is really significant here,” the parent said. “It feels like the last thing we should be cutting is milk for babies.”

Gomez said she wants to see UCLA prioritize children’s well being.

“I want them to put their money in their values and to really uphold the blue and gold standard,” Gomez said. “They want to uphold it for their graduate students and their undergraduate students, but these are UCLA students as well.”

Contributing reports by Maggie Konecky, Sophia Pu and Jared Hernandez-Bernal, Daily Bruin staff.