The maritime academies consistently rank very highly in terms of Return on Investment. For years I’ve been wondering why there is such resistance to a large increase in tuition at these schools. Is #5 on the list really that bad? 10? What’s so bad about 30th place in this category? Hows 60th out of ALL colleges?
Just for fun lets look at the numbers if the cost of school at Cal Maritime DOUBLES.
1st year on campus now: $31,063
2nd/3rd/4th year on campus per year now: $28,849
Sea term now: Complete guess 6k? times 3?
Total:135,610
DOUBLE IT: 271220.
With a $91,800 early career salary, that’s less than 3 years and you’ve made it all back. (that means less than 1.5 years now. WOW)
Less than three years sounds fair to me. Actually a good deal. Especially if the alternative is the school going under while you’re halfway through your degree. This is of course assuming no scholarships. According to Cal maritime you have a more than 50% chance of getting financial aid.
During COVID a bunch of the schools were feeling financial pressure, and I know some still are in the northeast, even with high enrollment. As long as ROI is high, raising the cost when money is in need is a win for everyone.
MARAD could do wonders for all the academies by dropping the regiment requirement.
That would save money and significantly boost the quantity and quality of applicants. Most kids today are looking for a more normal college experience, not a WWII era toy soldier boot camp hazing ritual. Times have changed.
I’m certainly a big advocate of hands on small boat training - starting in grade school and continuing through high school and college.
A bunch of small private collages without big endowments are about to go under. The demographics are simply that there are a lot less qualified students.
Too many kids (many of which are not well qualified for college) are going to expensive colleges on student loans and studying fields that have little value in the modern job market.
The government cannot keep handing out student loans that cannot be paid and then forgiving those loans.
Kids are starting to realize that it’s not worth it to take on a lot of debt, unless it’s at a college, and in a program, with strong job placement and a good return on investment. Parents being asked to co-sign loans are starting to realize it too.
A big shakeout is coming to the US liberal arts colleges without big endowments or strong public support.
I think the admin overhead for a 700 student school was starting to be too much. The teachers union was using this as a point in negotiations with a massive pay discrepancy- look how much CSU is spending on Admin here, vs what Teachers make. Cal Poly absorbing CMA is only like a 3% increase in the student body, they should have the administrative infastructure to absorb a lot of the responsibilities and reducing overhead by eliminating now redundant positions.
I dont think CMA was well suited to run a “CSU Valejo” but with resources of Cal Poly they may be able to do a better job. This goes hand in hand with the recent announcement that the corps will be optional for non licensed majors.
What about the difference in academic standards and student preparation between Cal Poly (a real design engineering school), and CMA (an operating engineering school) with a Mate program?
CMA has an 82% acceptance rate. Are CMA students going to be able to do Cal Poly standard work? I couldn’t see the difference in GPA or SAT scores on the US News and World Report site.
Cal Poly has over 20,000 students, so only 700 CMA students added to the mix should not drag Cal Poly’s GPA and Sat statistics down very much.
the state can give free needles to the junkies and subsidize the homeless so they can continue to sleep on the street.
defund the police department so only the gangs have guns.
but keeping a necessary and unique school of education open is beyond their comprehension.
the property developers are probably salivating to get this piece of land by SF bay
This is a tricky statistic, because, at least 6 years ago, the licensed majors (and engineering majors) were more selective/ always at capacity, while the bar was much lower for the busines majors, but you know, even with an acceptance rate that high no one wanted to go there. Maybe with Cal Poly’s brand they will have the luxury of being selective. The details arent hammered out yet, and the whole thing may get shot down by the board, but I’m sure folks will do their best with the information at hand. hopefully since CMA isnt calling the shots it won’t be a total clusterfuck.
I’m afraid the current plan is most likely made to kill Cal Maritime in its entirety a move to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo will see the current Cal Maritime Campus closed. There is no way students are going to be making a 4 hour drive to take classes there on the regular.
If they intended to save the campus they would have merged with Cal State San Francisco or even Cal State Sacramento which are under a hours drive away.
It’s pretty clear “cal maritime” may only remain in name. And I agree with @tugsailor that the education without a waterfront campus is going to be subpar.
Did no one read the article?! The article specifically says:
Cal Maritime’s specialized degree programs, three of which lead to a Merchant Marine license issued by the U.S. Coast Guard, would continue to be offered at the Vallejo campus.
Finally! For a hundred posts I’ve been waiting for someone to bring this up.
Perspective: when I went to CMA there were still remnants of the original school lying about. The original school provided no college degree. If I remember right it had been a 3 year tech school: someone can straighten me out on that.
But after the Vietnam War it had declining enrollment. So the state decided in the 1970s to make it a four year college.
But by the mid 1990s more students were needed to bring in more revenue. So they started to bring non-MM majors into the fold. Which helped. But not enough nowadays.
Read through the lines man. It will eventually kill Cal no doubt. Maybe not right away but it will.
Offering only three programs at the campus won’t suffice financially. So they will reevaluate and realize the students would be better to take most of the courses at cal poly then just limit or close most of the cal maritime buildings / campus. Then years down the line cal poly might realize that the lack of students wanting to take classes at a mostly landlocked school and retaining a cohort of high paid professors and small waterfront campus is not financially responsible and end the programs
IIRC, the UK maritime schools are part of a larger university and run as a more of a three year vo-tech school that leads to a “foundation” degree with an optional 4th year of classroom only that leads to a BSc. degree.
The UK schools are also 4 months in class, 4 months of cadet shipping, 4 months of class, and so on.
Would a more maritime focused vo-tech three year degree be worth considering for US maritime academies?
Would the humanities and other fluff courses to round out a 4 year degree, be better done as a much lower cost online degree program after the vo-tech grads are out sailing on their licenses?
Starlink makes onboard online study very feasible.
How does AMO’s Star Center engineering license program work? Isn’t that only two years?
The Calhoun recruiter came to my high school. As I recall, at that time, that was a two year license program.
If there’s a shortage of mariners and unions are having difficulty filling berths, is any consideration being given to restarting the Calhoun license program?
MARAD can waste a ton of money for no good reason like buying 2 horrible ARC vessels and adding them to the ROS fleet even though they should’ve been scrapped.
Maybe they will move the ship to Kings Point when all the companies threaten not to take cadets. More likely is that they will let it sit at a dock somewhere ROS style lol.
I can’t tell if this is good news or bad news for me. I am an incoming out of state transfer student-veteran. I sent my college application back 4 months ago. I can’t tell if they’re still reviewing my application or if this has something to do with it?
I find it ironic that they are hurting for students but they still haven’t decided on my application. I am a GI bill student, 3.1 GPA, pre requisites like Calculus 1 and 2 done for Marine Engineering Technology and license option.
I already got accepted to SUNY but I really wanna go to Cal Maritime for the views, weather and incoming NSMV 5 training ship.
Again, we dont know what the plan is, but the campus itself has the facilities to hold over 1000 students, especialy if they allow folks to live off campus, but again, quality of life on campus sucks. Theres demand for a North Bay CSU closer than Sonoma, so by removing the requirement for the corps and bringing in some locals, the campus can easily make sense for general ed/undeclared majors to go and then transfer elsewhere in the CSU.
CMA is in this position because of a bunch of bone headded decisions by admin, like forcing a way overpriced (and terrible quality) meal plan, requiring on campus living, and up until next year, a drug testing program and corps requirements for non licensed cadets. Take that away for the non licensed students and make it a somewhat normal college with a ship and we still have a maritime program ln the west coast.
Maine Maritime Academy was ranked as the best school for veterans US News and World Report. They have a veterans center there for their students too.
Attracting veterans should be a priority for maritime academies. Cal maritime giving you the cold shoulder is horrible no wonder why they are struggling
Maine Maritime dropped the regiment requirement for a lot of majors. There’s a fair number of veterans that go and choose the limited license deck or industrial engineering majors