Arizona State University will begin offering four-year degree programs at Southwestern College next fall in what Chula Vista officials hope will eventually become a major presence by the school in San Diego’s County’s second-largest city.
It’s unclear what kind of degree programs ASU will establish. But the breadth of offerings could be wide. As the nation’s largest university, ASU specializes in everything from education and computer science to biotechnology and entrepreneurship.
South County is projected to add about 25,000 jobs over the next decade. Currently, about 80,000 commuters leave the Chula Vista area for jobs in other parts of the county, notably in the fields of biotech, medicine, health care and engineering.
Chula Vista has been trying for 30 years to convince a university to create a campus in South County, which has more than half a million residents and is growing quickly. Southwestern, a community college, is the region’s only permanent public institution of higher education.
The city has set aside 383 acres of land for a university and innovation district — a parcel that is larger than San Diego State University’s main campus. But it has yet to persuade a large, name-plate university to settle there.
ASU has only committed to four-year degree program classes at Southwestern, which is building a center where students can take upper-division courses.
SDSU, Point Loma Nazarene University and National University already offer four-year degree program courses at Southwestern. ASU will become the fourth in late 2024.
The university is a much sought-after partner. In recent decades, ASU has proved masterful at expanding access, partly by creating satellite campuses in many places. The school currently has about 146,000 undergraduates, graduate students and professional students, making it more than three times the size of UC San Diego. Tens of thousands of those students take one or more classes online.
The university’s expansion to Chula Vista “reinforces the city’s vision and illuminates the need that we seek to address by bringing higher education opportunities to Chula Vista and the South Bay,” Mayor John McCann said in a recent statement.
Staff writer Tammy Murga contributed to this story.
