By Walter Ryce

Cal State Monterey Bay is ahead of the California State University’s systemwide goals for increasing graduation rates, decreasing time to graduation, and closing equity gaps – goals set forth in the ambitious Graduation Initiative 2025. 

"Cal State Monterey Bay is a leader in the system as the only campus to have met our goals on all six of the student success metrics established by the system," said Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew Lawson. "While we should be very proud of all that we have achieved, we must continue to improve the outcomes for our students and my team continues their focus on what we can do to continue this upward trajectory."

The CSU system launched a multi-year Graduation Initiative in 2009, hoping to increase the six-year graduation rates for incoming first-year students and to cut the achievement gap in half by 2015. 

Following the success of that campaign, in 2015 the CSU implemented the next iteration, the 10-year Graduation Initiative 2025, with a new set of ambitious targets including: 

• Increasing graduation rates for first-year and transfer students
• Decreasing the amount of time it takes to graduate
• Eliminating equity gaps in degree completion 
• Saving students money and time 

The CSU now reports that eight years into Graduation Initiative 2025, the system has “nearly doubled its four-year graduation rate,” contributing to an additional 150,000 bachelor's degrees earned and translating into an additional $53,000 of earned income over the average graduate’s lifetime. 

“With every earned degree, the lives of our students and their families are forever transformed," said CSU Chancellor Mildred García. “While the CSU's collective focus on our ambitious goals has resulted in graduation rates at or near all-time highs, there is still much to accomplish in the coming years.” 

In October, Michelle Mayo, CSUMB’s associate provost for Student Success and dean of Undergraduate Studies, attended the “CSU Graduation Initiative 2025 Symposium: Advancing Equity for a Better Tomorrow” in San Diego.

“I thought it was a great event to bring all the CSUs together,” Mayo said. “We had an opportunity to see where everyone was landing with the equity gap and how we’re doing in our system.”

She reported that Cal State Monterey Bay is the only campus that is on track or has exceeded all six metrics. 

The CSU’s GI2025 goal for freshmen to graduate in four years is 40%. CSUMB’s own goal is even higher, at 44%, and the university is currently at 44.1%. 

The CSU’s GI2025 goal for transfer students to graduate in two years is 45%. CSUMB’s goal is 46%, which has been surpassed, with the current rate at 56.4%. 

The equity gaps for Pell Grant recipients and underrepresented students remain “an ongoing challenge” across the system, but CSUMB has eliminated or inverted those gaps, with Pell Grant and/or underrepresented students graduating at higher rates than the overall average.

CSUMB faculty and staff members have contributed to that success through programs that lent extra support in math and reading. Also, workforce groups were assembled to tackle drop, fail and withdrawal rates, barriers to registration were lowered, and hundreds of laptops and hotspots were distributed to students to compensate for the COVID pandemic. 

“We beefed up academic advising. I think that has contributed to this success,” Mayo said. “Students wanted more accessible advising and shorter wait times. We addressed that.” 

Academic leaders, including Mayo and Lawson, are focused on what CSUMB can do to get even more students to graduate in four years, and there are plans for a student success retreat on May 22, 2024, to engage the campus community in these continued efforts. 

Each year almost 100,000 students graduate from a CSU. Beyond 2025, the next phase of the program is still being determined but will include a focus on the success of Black students and other historically underserved groups.

“As a result of our work on the graduation initiative, an additional 2,795 students have graduated from CSUMB, the average time to obtain a degree has been reduced by almost half a semester, and the decreased time to degree represents a significant cost savings to our students and their families,” Lawson said. “This is transformative to the lives of all of those graduates."