March 6, 2026
I just signed this petition.
I wish all of our campuses were still open, but I wonder about this: Since the Ocean Campus and the Mission Campus need students, is it possible that students who can no longer enroll in the Downtown center will add to the Ocean or Mission enrollment?
In spite of my worry about the needs of the Ocean and Mission campuses, I signed.
This downtown S.F. college campus to close after low enrollment triggers loss of state funds
By Nanette Asimov,Staff WriterMarch 6, 2026
Gift Article
City College of San Francisco will close its 47-year-old campus at Fourth and Mission streets this summer and move its culinary, fashion and language classes to other under-enrolled locations, including to the school’s Chinatown campus, the Chronicle has learned.
The campus at 88 Fourth St., one of six primary City College sites around the city, is set to lose more than $2 million in state funding next year because it enrolls the equivalent of just 152 full-time students — far short of the 1,000 required to continue receiving money from the state.
Because of that and the cost of maintaining the nine-story campus, “our leadership team has made the difficult decision not to schedule classes at the Downtown Center for the fall semester,” City College Chancellor Kimberlee Messina emailed employees Friday, noting that “there will be no job losses because of this change.”
The Downtown Center’s closure this summer will be the latest vacancy in the ongoing exodus of businesses and other tenants from the city’s once-vibrant core, which civic leaders have struggled to reverse since the end of the pandemic. Amid some signs of improvement, more than 30% of office buildings remained empty at the end of 2025.
City College owns the 84,000-square-foot building and will look for “potential partnerships with other educational institutions, community-based organizations, the city and other partners” that might move into the building, Messina said.
Aliya Chisti, chair of the college’s Board of Trustees, called the Downtown campus a “valued part of City College’s presence in the community, and its future will continue to be an important conversation.”
Established in 1979, City College Downtown enrolls more than 900 part-time students studying food service, fashion, Romance languages and English. Last year, the campus was among a dozen downtown colleges and universities — with nearly 13,000 in-person students altogether — identified by the Chronicle, even as city leaders expressed hope of attracting a new college to revitalize the area. Each school, including City College’s Downtown Center, urged the mayor’s office to instead invest in schools already there.
But even then, it may have been too late for the Downtown Center.
The campus has long been known for its baking program and other culinary courses. For years, the students operated their popular “Educated Palate” restaurant on the corner of Fourth and Mission. When the pandemic forced the restaurant’s closure, students opened “EP,” a weekly pop-bake shop on the site.
But the energy behind the school’s baking program came mainly from Elizabeth Riehle, known as Chef Betsy, who is retiring after this semester. Next fall, her program will be consolidated with other food service classes at City College’s main campus on Frida Kahlo Way in the Ingleside neighborhood.
That would decimate the downtown site. The entire student body already equates to just 152 full-timers, Vice Chancellor David Yee told the college trustees on Feb. 12.
Unlike City College’s other campuses, the Downtown Center is directly approved by the state, said Chris Ferguson, an executive vice chancellor with the California Community College chancellor’s office. As a result, the state requires this particular campus to enroll at least 1,000 full-time equivalent students as a condition of receiving $2.2 million a year. Pandemic and other state funding protections allowed the Downtown Center to keep the funding for several years, even as enrollment dropped below the threshold.
But those protections will expire on July 1.
For City College, attracting new students has been one of its most vexing, and costly, dilemmas.
A decade ago, City College enrolled the equivalent of 22,541 full-time students across all of its six campuses, state records show. Today, records show just 9,172 full-time equivalent students for this fall, a 59% drop. Yee’s updated presentation to the City College trustees reveals an even lower number: 7,355.
The college’s enrollment plunge has led the state to freeze funding for City College at 2024-25 levels until more students show up. But the Downtown campus is not fully protected by this minimal funding guarantee because it operates at the state’s discretion.
To try and reverse their overall enrollment problem, City College officials are challenging themselves to attract 800 full-time equivalent students to each of three campuses: Chinatown (808 Kearny St.), Mission (1125 Valencia St.) and John Adams (1860 Hayes St.), according to this year’s budget.
That will be a heavy lift, requiring City College to more than double enrollment across all three sites to 2,700 full-time equivalent students. Currently, there are just 1,438. So college officials are eyeing classes with low enrollment and considering where to shift their funding.
Enter the Downtown campus.
Not only is it far from student housing, but the English-language classes it offers must also compete with new online language apps. The rise of ICE has also scattered many English learners from in-person classes across the entire system. The Downtown campus is also increasingly isolated, sitting around the corner from the shuttered San Francisco Centre mall.
Chisti, the trustees’ chair, noted that the campus has been important for English learners and other immigrant communities for years.
“As the college navigates enrollment and funding challenges, the focus is on making sure students continue to have access to classes and services,” she said.
