Dive Temporary:
- Georgia Southern College is poised to soak up East Georgia State Faculty after the College System of Georgia governing board accepted a merger plan Tuesday.
- The board’s vote follows USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue’s advice for the consolidation final week. Tuesday’s motion marks “step one in a cautious course of that can take greater than a yr,” the system stated.
- The brand new establishment will retain the “id” of East Georgia State, which has struggled with enrollment declines lately. On the similar time, it would develop into a part of Georgia Southern and might be led by the latter’s president, Kyle Marrero, in accordance with the announcement. The consolidation requires the approval of the establishments’ accreditor.
Dive Perception:
Perdue trumpeted the consolidation of Georgia Southern and East Georgia State as a option to put money into key increased training capabilities — particularly pupil success and diploma entry — by saving on administrative prices and lowering tutorial program overlap.
“By utilizing public assets as effectively as potential, we’re ensuring each greenback saved is reinvested into these packages that really empower our college students, assist our school and strengthen our communities for a brighter future,” Perdue stated in Tuesday’s announcement.
Georgia state Rep. Butch Parrish — who represents Swainsboro, which is residence to East Georgia State and 40 miles from Georgia Southern — praised the plan.
“It’s important that because the system streamlines and operates extra effectively, we safeguard entry to increased training within the native space and hold the EGSC spirit going,” Parrish stated in an announcement.
Now that the board has greenlit the merger, the establishments plan on rapidly forming an implementation group with representatives from each faculties to work out particulars, the system stated. That group can even put together and submit the required paperwork for approval by their accreditor, the Southern Affiliation of Schools and Colleges Fee on Schools.
USG and the establishments plan on holding campus and neighborhood listening periods to hunt enter on the brand new establishment’s design, with the primary one slated for Wednesday on East Georgia State’s campus.
Of the 2, Georgia Southern is by far the bigger establishment. As of fall 2023, the college enrolled 26,041 college students to East Georgia State’s 1,756, in accordance with federal knowledge. Georgia Southern’s enrollment has been comparatively steady, declining 1.4% between 2018 and 2023, whereas East Georgia State’s fell by 40.3%.
The bigger college additionally has a a lot deeper catalog of packages in comparison with East Georgia State, which in accordance with its web site gives six affiliate and three bachelor’s diploma packages.
The deliberate consolidation is the most recent transfer in an effort going again practically 15 years to pare down Georgia’s state college system. Thus far, USG has undertaken 13 consolidations. From these, it has saved $30 million in administrative bills that it stated it has reinvested into pupil companies and school and employees hires
As soon as the Georgia Southern and East Georgia State mixture completes, USG could have 25 establishments, the system stated.
