Struggling California College of the Arts raises $45M to fund turnaround

Higher Ed Dive

Ben Unglesbee

February 26, 2025

Dive Brief:

• California College of the Arts has landed nearly $45 million in donations to help keep the struggling private institution afloat and fund turnaround efforts, it announced earlier this month.

•  Anchoring the fundraising push was a $22.5 million matching gift from the charitable fund of Jen-Hsun Huang, the billionaire founder of Taiwanese technology company Nvidia, and his wife, Lori. The college’s trustees as well as former trustees, alumni and others contributed as well, the institution said.

• The donations will provide bridge funding into the next fiscal year, help CCA address its deficit, and “position the college both to continue its strong fundraising work and pursue its path to long-term sustainability,” it said.  

Dive Insight:

Going into 2025, CCA faced an uncertain fiscal future.

In September, the arts college announced it had laid off 23 employees, or 10% of its staff, while also cutting open roles that made up another nearly 5%.

Those efforts aimed to address what was then a $20 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year. In addition to layoffs, CCA said then it was also reviewing its academic portfolio, undertaking a new strategic enrollment plan and fundraising as part of its efforts to rein in its deficit.

Local media reports raised the possibility last year that the San Francisco-based CCA — the last private arts institution in the city after the San Francisco Art Institute closed in 2022 — could close or merge with another institution.

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