Degrees awarded (GSU's offered degrees ranged from doctorates to one-year certificates in specialized study areas; GPC offered associate degrees and certificates)
Georgia State University:
29,118 in fall 2010; 32,435 in fall 2014; average over five years, 30,652
Georgia Perimeter College:
23,301 in fall 2010; 19,034 in fall 2014; average over five years, 21,624
Source: University System of Georgia
Read more about the consoldiation plan in a Q&A with Georgia State President Mark Becker here.
The state’s Board of Regents approved the first step Tuesday in merging Georgia State University and Georgia Perimeter College to create the largest college in the state.
There are not a lot of answers yet about possible changes to degree programs, staffing and tuition costs.
For students, there will not be much immediate impact, said Georgia State President Mark Becker, who would lead the merged school under the recommended plan.
“It’s not as if things are going to change dramatically overnight,” he said. “The downtown campus will be pretty much as it is. Perimeter campuses are going to remain what you might call the access campuses.”
Some Georgia State alumni have questioned whether combining the four-year research institution with Georgia Perimeter, a two-year broad access college would erode academic standards. There have also been questions about whether tuition is likely to rise, and how a budget shortfall at Georgia Perimeter will affect the consolidated school.
Ultimately in the new consolidated institution, the downtown campus will be the “flagship campus,” Becker said.
Hank Huckaby, chancellor of the University System of Georgia, recommended the merger. In his proposal, the combined college would be named Georgia State University with Becker as president. Georgia Perimeter hasn’t had a permanent president since 2012, when findings of financial mismanagement led to accreditation sanctions and the former president’s resignation.
“There’s going to be greater heterogeneity of Georgia State University. Perimeter college will be a component of Georgia State. It will not be that everything that happens on the Perimeter campuses is what is going to happen downtown,” Becker said. “We do not at this point intend to bring associate degrees downtown.” Those programs would be kept at existing Georgia Perimeter campuses.
Becker pointed to the University of South Carolina college system, which includes access institution Palmetto College. Becker was provost and vice president of academic affairs at USC before coming to Georgia State.
It’s also too early to tell whether there will be employee layoffs, as happened with some duplicate staff positions in other recent USG mergers. It’s also too early to know whether any Georgia Perimeter campuses will be closed, Becker said.
The mainly two-year college operates five campuses in metro Atlanta and Newton County. Enrollment at Georgia Perimeter has declined over the past few years, leading to about a $10 million funding gap that will have to be worked through during the consolidation, system officials said. The budget outlook at the college was significant but was not the key factor in recommending the merger, said Huckaby. Serious talks on the proposal began about three months ago, he said.
The GSU/GPC consolidation is the sixth consolidation of University System institutions in the past three years. Also on Tuesday, the Regents finalized the most recent merger, Kennesaw State and Southern Polytechnic State universities, which reduces the number of USG schools from 31 to 30.
Georgia State student Brittany Logan has more questions about merging the missions of two such disparate institutions than about tuition costs. “Georgia State is not easy to get into,” she said. “How are they going to merge the two or put them on the same level, and make it an even playing field for students” at different levels?
Logan, a senior and member of Georgia State’s women’s basketball team, attended Georgia Perimeter for two years before transferring in 2013. “There are reasons some students choose to go to two-year colleges versus four-year colleges,” she said. “I’ll be curious to see how they combine them and put it all together.”
A team of administrators, faculty, staff and students from both institutions and the state system office will work throughout this year on a plan to combine the two schools. A report from that team is expected next January. If the plan is approved by accreditators and the Board of Regents, the first class of students at the merged institutions would enroll in fall 2016.
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