Low enrollment odds. Overflowing classrooms. Undergraduate students overwhelming faculty and teaching assistants.

Every political science student at UCLA is accustomed to it by now. And recent budget cuts to the department threaten to make those problems worse.

UCLA’s political science department plans to cut teaching assistant and reader positions, the Daily Bruin reported in July. Introductory classes are also set to have significantly fewer spots available for undergraduate students.

[Related: Amid budget deficit, political science department cuts TAs, shrinks course capacities]

It’s no help that UCLA itself is facing a budget deficit of $220 million, according to the interim chief financial officer. That deficit has led to cuts across the board, including reduced funding for the math department, tour guides and support for low-income and first-generation college students.

[Related: “A Perfect Storm”: How Budget Cuts Have Impacted UCLA]

However, if the university plans to carry out its mission of disseminating knowledge, it can’t cut the resources of those who make that learning happen. The university needs to grant the department the funding it is owed to support the learning of UCLA’s nearly 2,000 political science students.

John Branstetter, a continuing lecturer in the political science department, said it’s difficult to pinpoint a specific reasoning for the budget cuts because UCLA isn’t transparent about how it allocates its budget. In February, UCLA announced Stephen Agostini was out as chief financial officer after he told the Daily Bruin that UCLA was running a $425 million deficit – markedly higher than the estimate his replacement gave in a March email.

“It’s really opaque,” Branstetter said. “It’s kind of impossible to know exactly how much they have, exactly where it goes and how it’s all distributed.”

As of 2024, UCLA awarded more political science degrees than any other university in the country. The university has an obligation to provide those students with sufficient funding.

Admittedly, it is difficult to critique the budgetary process since we do not know what factors go into making decisions surrounding funding allocations.

And students, who will face negative repercussions from the cuts, have received little, if any, information about what’s to come.

Spenser Kussin-Gika, a political science graduate student, said he believes UCLA needs to provide routine updates about budget cuts.

“There’s not a lot of cooperation and coordination,” he said.

Branstetter said the common belief from political science department members is that they have no money for anything – including hiring.

And fewer faculty and TAs could dampen students’ chances of connecting with their instructors, especially in a political science setting.

Even though they study political science, graduate student Ryan Guth said they often end up serving as a teaching assistant for other departments, which they hold little knowledge or expertise in, because there isn’t enough capacity in the political science department.

That gives political science students fewer instructors to work closely with limiting their ability to learn.

“It’s bad for everybody, and it doesn’t make sense from a university perspective,” Guth said.

No matter the reason, funding cuts show an explicit devaluation of the humanities. The move takes away from students’ ability to learn, at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Branstetter recommends that people concerned with the cuts work to put pressure on the UCLA administration.

“We have a tendency to just assume that administrators are going to do what’s in our best interest, and it’s just really clear that they’re not, and we’re going to have to make them,” Branstetter said.

It should be inspiring that so many UCLA students study political science, a field focused on how we can create a better, more just world.

But students can’t get there without learning first. To make that happen, UCLA must step up, be transparent about its budget and allocate adequate funding to the political science department.