Dive Temporary:
- The College System of Georgia desires to merge East Georgia State Faculty with Georgia Southern College, a transfer that might maintain the previous’s id whereas making it part of Georgia Southern.
- USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue will suggest the plan to the system’s board of regents for a choice at their mid-April assembly, in response to USG’s announcement on Tuesday. The merger would additionally require accreditation approval by the Southern Affiliation of Schools and Faculties Fee on Schools.
- USG hopes to avoid wasting on administrative prices and cut back tutorial duplication, amongst different anticipated advantages, via the merger. The transfer would proceed efforts to consolidate the system that stretch again greater than a decade.
Dive Perception:
East Georgia State and Georgia Southern are lower than 40 miles aside, however they function at very completely different scales.
Georgia Southern is by far the bigger establishment, with 26,041 college students in fall 2023, in response to federal information. That enrollment has remained comparatively secure lately, dipping simply 1.4% since 2018. East Georgia State, in the meantime, has a fraction of that scholar physique — 1,756 college students in fall 2023, which was down about 40% from 5 years prior.
First opened in 1973 because the two-year Emanuel Nation Junior Faculty, East Georgia State right this moment nonetheless solely presents a handful of bachelor’s levels. The almost 120-year-old Georgia Southern, alternatively, boasts 150 applications, together with a variety of bachelor’s and grasp’s levels, together with certificates and doctoral choices.
Bringing the 2 establishments collectively is supposed to “higher serve college students, broaden tutorial applications provided in Georgia’s Decrease Coastal Plain area and reinvest financial savings into teachers to enhance scholar success,” USG stated.
Below the plan, East Georgia State would come underneath the management of Georgia Southern President Kyle Marrero. If permitted by the system’s regents, an implementation workforce made up of representatives from every establishment would start ironing out the main points of the merger.
In saying his suggestion for the merger, Perdue stated the system’s consolidation efforts are primarily based on “core priorities of attainment, affordability and effectivity.”
On the identical time, he famous management additionally understands “the significance of constructing certain East Georgia State Faculty’s legacy of making information and prosperity continues” in Swainsboro, the place the establishment is predicated.
USG has been actively consolidating its establishments and simplifying the system since launching a consolidation initiative in 2011. Throughout that point, the college system has seemed to stability price financial savings with providing regional alternatives to college students. So far, the consolidations have saved a complete $30 million in administrative bills, USG stated Tuesday.
The trouble acquired underway in early 2012 with a consolidation of eight establishments out of what was then 35. 5 extra consolidations have been later permitted. If the mixture of Georgia Southern and East Georgia State goes via, the system will come out of the method with 25 establishments.
One of many earlier consolidations concerned Georgia Southern as nicely, with it in 2017 absorbing Armstrong State College, which right this moment is named the college’s Armstrong Campus in Savannah.
