Cal Maritime merges with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, "to forestall its financial disintegration" having lost 31% students

https://stocktonia.org/news/education/2024/11/27/cal-maritime-merges-with-cal-poly-san-luis-obispo/

California State University approved a merger uniting the financially troubled Cal Maritime in Vallejo, its smallest campus, with the university system’s most selective institution, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The full board of trustees greenlighted the merger proposal last week, a decision designed to keep the maritime academy in operation following enrollment declines that threatened its financial viability as an independent institution. The decision followed a unanimous vote for the merger by the trustees’ Joint Committee on Finance and Educational Policy.

System officials argue that combining the two Cal State locations will ultimately benefit both universities. Cal Poly will gain access to maritime academy facilities, including a $360 million training vessel and pier; Cal Maritime hopes to boost the number of students seeking merchant marine licenses.

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The system will face a tight timeline to unite the two institutions under the same administration by July 1, 2025. After that deadline, the combined university plans to continue under the Cal Poly name, and Cal Maritime will be rechristened Cal Poly, Solano Campus. The intent is for all students at the newly merged university to be enrolled as Cal Poly students starting in fall 2026.

Cal State is trying to save its smallest campus by merging it with Cal Poly



In summary

Due to financial collapse brought on by enrollment declines, Cal Maritime is poised to merge with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The merger is expected to pass a final vote by Cal State leaders tomorrow after being approved in committee today.

Fueling Cal Maritime’s fiscal misfortune is a collapse in enrollment and the tuition dollars that flow from it: Since 2016-17, Cal Maritime shed 31% of its students, dropping from 1,107 to 761 last fall. Cal Poly’s enrollment in the same period has held steady at around 22,000 students.

In a bid to forestall its financial disintegration, Cal Maritime, California’s smallest public university, is merging with one of the state’s most selective and financially stable universities, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It’s a move that’ll conjoin a Bay Area campus that trains students for a life at sea to a school 250 miles away that’s known for agriculture and engineering.

California State University senior officials in the chancellor’s office painted a stark picture in its report to the board of trustees that collectively oversees the whole system. There “continues to be a dire, binary choice: integrate the two institutions or initiate immediate steps for the closure of the Maritime Academy,” board documents said.

https://calmatters.org/education/2024/11/cal-maritime-cal-poly-merger/

a beautiful lil campus: