For three decades, Chula Vista officials and state lawmakers have dreamed of bringing a public university to town. But after years of starts and stops, some saw it as little more than a pipe dream.
Now though, local officials feel that vision is finally beginning to take shape.
City officials have laid the groundwork for a sprawling campus on 380 acres of city-owned land in the rolling hills between East Chula Vista’s suburban outskirts and the Lower Otay Reservoir.
But this wouldn’t be a typical four-year public university. Instead, it would be a multi-university campus that houses academic programs from other universities, community colleges, and even high schools across the San Diego-Tijuana region.
It would also focus more narrowly on degrees that would serve major industries in the South Bay like health care and binational trade.
This wasn't always the plan. Officials had previously hoped for a Cal State or UC campus, but the financial and political hurdles were always too high. And to be clear, a physical university campus in San Diego County’s second-largest city is still years away at the earliest.
However, there is a growing sense that this new vision is more realistic than previous plans.
“People have tried to do this for over 30 years, and we haven't had the type of significant steps forward that we've had in the last couple of years,” said State Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-Chula Vista).
One reason for the optimism is earlier this year Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Alvarez authored that establishes a task force to explore funding for a physical campus.
Also, the academic infrastructure is already being built. SDSU, UCSD and CSU San Marcos have each announced plans to begin offering degrees in Chula Vista in industries that are prominent in the South Bay – like nursing, public health, business and cybersecurity.
The overall goal, Alvarez said, is to give students a better chance of getting a job swiftly after graduation.
“We need to offer an education that actually gets people a job,” he said. “Not just gets them a BA, a certificate or a degree, but gets them into the workforce.”
Some of those programs will be housed at Southwestern College, while others will take place at the city’s new Millenia Library building. The ultimate goal is to move them all to the new campus.
One campus, three universities
Although South Bay officials’ vision for a multi-university campus would be the first of its kind in California, the idea is based on similar campuses across the country.
One prominent example is the decades-old Auraria Campus in Denver, which houses the local city college and two separate universities — Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Denver.
Auraria officials said the multi-university model makes it easier for students to transfer. The goal, they said, is that students can enter Auraria through community college, enroll in a four-year university and even move on to a Master’s or a PhD without ever needing to look elsewhere.
Having all three institutions in the same place also allows them to lower costs by combining resources. The three schools share a central library, a student union and other facilities like food service and mental health support.
“You get a much better campus than you would have individually,” said Skip Spear, Auraria’s Chief Administrative Officer. “A lot of community colleges in Colorado consist of one or two buildings. Here you're getting access to 150 acres.”
There is a key difference between the Auraria Campus and the one envisioned here. Instead of being a primary home, Chula Vista’s campus would function more like a satellite for the other universities.
That could pose some logistical challenges in California, where the state’s public university systems and community colleges have historically worked separately, Alvarez said.
Coming up with ways to break down those silos will be a priority of the task force, which will bring together representatives from the UC, CSU and state community college systems. Alvarez said the task force will also look for ways to fund construction and operation of the new campus.
Significant hurdles remain
The movement to draw a university to San Diego County’s second-largest city has faced its share of setbacks over the years.
At one point, Chula Vista was on a shortlist with four other cities to be the location for a brand new California State University. But in 2020, the CSU system said they couldn’t justify the cost of a new campus based on current enrollment demand.
Just last year, city officials scrapped a plan to bring San Diego State University’s television, film and media program to town after failing to agree on terms. The Union-Tribune reported that both the city and the university acknowledged the plan was rushed and poorly executed.
(KPBS is a department of SDSU but is editorially-independent.)
And, in many ways, we are living in a fragile time for California’s public universities.
The UC and CSU systems are facing an onslaught of public threats to their funding from the Trump administration that target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which elevate people of color, women and LGBTQ+ communities.
And broadly, many Americans feel college degrees are less important to get a well-paying job today than they were 20 years ago. In California, many public universities have been struggling to draw in students in recent years.
But Alvarez points to some hopeful news: in San Diego, public universities are drawing more interest than ever.
Enrollment has risen steadily at both UCSD and SDSU over the last decade. Enrollment at CSU San Marcos dipped during the pandemic but has rebounded and continued to rise in recent years.
Alvarez and other officials argue this demand sets up Chula Vista’s aspiring university for dramatic success. He points out that SDSU received over 95,000 first-year applicants last year and accepted just 6,900 of them.
“Obviously the vast majority were rejected, and many of those who come from our own community,” Alvarez said. “We can open a campus, and we’d have huge demand.”
To many South Bay students, the question of what a local university might look like remains a hazy one. On a recent afternoon at Southwestern College, most students told KPBS they had never heard about the university effort.
But some are already excited about the idea.
Jasmine Araujo, a first-year biology student at Southwestern, said the thought of having a university campus closer to home was exciting.
“I think that’s cool,” she said. “I know a lot of people don't [drive] and have to take public transportation, and it's much easier.”
