News

President's Message - Spring/summer 2018

Dear friends of Cal State Monterey Bay,

In February, the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) came out with its latest report on our state’s growing need for college graduates.

The report said: “To meet economic demand and secure a more prosperous future for our state, California’s higher education institutions will need to produce 1.1 million more college graduates by 2030.” Those graduates are over and above the number to be educated under a “business as usual” scenario. To close the gap, the PPIC report said the CSU alone would need to produce 481,000 more graduates.

This edition of the CSUMB Magazine highlights our efforts to educate more college graduates, including the Bright Futures initiative to improve the cradle-to-career pipeline and our programs to increase retention and graduation among underrepresented groups. System-wide, the CSU is aggressively working to improve its graduation rates through the Graduation 2025 initiative. However, the missing piece is an ongoing commitment by the state to help fund higher education expansion.

In its 2018-19 budget request, the CSU has asked for $282.9 million in additional funds. That money would help pay for programs connected to the graduation initiative, would support a 1 percent increase in funded enrollment and would also pay for facilities and infrastructure needs, compensation increases and increases in other mandatory costs.

Unfortunately, despite a strong statewide economy, the governor’s proposed budget would fund less than one-third of that request.

During the application period for the 2018-19 academic year, CSUMB received more than 12 applications for every available spot we have in our freshman class. It is true that many of those students applied to more than one school. However, the flood of inquiries across the CSU from qualified applicants far exceeds the space available.

At CSUMB, we have room to grow and an updated master plan that explains how we would do so. We would welcome the chance to help close the college graduate gap foreseen by the PPIC.

So we will join with our colleagues from across the system – and from across higher education – to make our case in Sacramento.

We understand the problem; we want to help solve it.

Sincerely,

Eduardo M. Ochoa, President