Dive Brief:
- In a bid to save California State University Maritime Academy from closing, the Cal State system's trustee board approved a plan Thursday to merge the institution with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
- Officials expect the integration process to be completed by the beginning of the 2026-27 academic year, according to a press release. The trustees set two major milestones: administrative integration, due in July 2025, and academic and enrollment integration by fall 2026.
- Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong is set to lead the new governance structure of the combined institutions. The new administration will also include a CEO of the maritime university, which will be renamed the Cal Poly, Solano Campus.
Dive Insight:
Founded in 1929 with a focus on education and research in maritime trades and transport, Cal Maritime has come under financial stress of late. The institution has carried an operating fund deficit in four out of the past five years, including $82,903 in the 2023-24 year and $883,610 the year before.
Those numbers might understate the problems at Cal Maritime, however. In a report on a potential merger this week, system and college leaders described a state of “declining enrollment and its associated unviable and unsustainable fiscal circumstances” at Cal Maritime.
Between 2017 and 2022, fall headcount at Cal Maritime dropped 22.1% to 849 students, according to federal data. Meanwhile, enrollment at Cal Poly — by far the larger of the two — has hovered around 22,000 students over the same period.
The “increasingly urgent” financial and operational problems at Cal Maritime created a “dire, binary choice,” the officials noted in their report. That choice being: “integrate the two institutions or initiate immediate steps for the closure of the Maritime Academy.”
They argued that integration “would not only preserve, but grow the critical merchant mariner license-track programs so vital to the maritime industry and to the state’s and nation’s economy, as well as to national security interests.”
In Thursday’s press release, Cal State Chancellor Mildred García echoed that goal, saying that “Cal Poly San Luis Obispo will grow the impact and influence of the Cal Poly Maritime Academy throughout the Pacific-facing states and U.S. territories, bringing new opportunities and more equitable access.”
Post-merger, a superintendent will oversee Cal Maritime's nautical training programs, to be housed under the name Cal Poly Maritime Academy.
Jessica Darin, Cal Poly’s vice president for strategic initiatives and advocacy, will lead the broader integration process between Cal Poly and Cal Maritime, with assistance from the system chancellor's office and the consultancy Baker Tilly.
Seven teams made up of personnel from the three organizations are evaluating how the integration will affect Cal Poly moving forward, Amstrong said in a Thursday message.
Specifically, the groups are examining effects on academics, enrollment, student affairs, advancement, communications and external relations, finance, accreditation and other areas. An implementation plan will emerge from that work, Armstrong said.
