Georgia State University President Mark Becker hosted a dinner with faculty leaders Monday night to tell them about the plan to merge their up-and-coming research university with a nearby college that graduates fewer than 10 percent of its students and struggles to balance its books.
By noon on Tuesday, after months of secret discussions, Georgia higher education officials had approved that plan, which will merge Georgia State with Georgia Perimeter College, a mostly two-year institution. The combined college would bear the Georgia State University name and be the largest university in Georgia in early 2016, when the merger is to be made final.
The move is the latest and perhaps the most significant in a series of mergers backed by Hank Huckaby, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia. With this change, he'll have reduced the number of colleges in the system to 29 from 35 when he took office in 2011. The system's Board of Regents also on Tuesday finalized the merger of Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/07/georgia-officials-hope-georgia-state-u-can-improve-local-two-year-college-taking-it