After attending decades of welcome-back fall meetings at the former Humboldt State University, I found it interesting to watch President Richard A. Carvajal at Cal Poly Humboldt, the ninth president and first Latino to lead CPH after being president of Valdosta State University from 2017 to 2025, in his first ever Fall Welcome event on Monday, Aug. 17. He also shared budget news and serious concerns about projected fall student-enrollment numbers of interest to the campus and the community. This enrollment news used to affect me greatly as a faculty member, but a flat or declining CPH enrollment will affect our community as well.
Carvajal didn’t sugarcoat serious concerns about projected fall student-enrollment numbers. Peggy Metzger, interim vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Success, first shared the good enrollment news: CPH has had four straight years (eight semesters) of small enrollment increases since 2022, unlike declining enrollments at many Cal State University campuses.
The bad enrollment news: There are 100 fewer first-time freshmen enrolled at CPH this fall compared to last year. Metzger closed with the question: Will the string of eight consecutive semesters of small increases of enrollment growth at CPH end this fall? (The official final enrollment numbers will be available around Oct. 1.)
Mike Fisher, vice president for Administration and Finance, was next to share news about budget and capital project updates. CPH begins the 2026-27 fiscal year with a “balanced operating budget” of $184.3 million, a 5.1 percent increase from last year. One of the big completed capital projects was the new artificial turf replacement in Redwood Bowl and the New Engineering and Technology Building nears completion in time for spring semester 2027.
“The university budget is balanced and well positioned for 2027-28 and beyond, but we need to be disciplined,” said Fisher optimistically. He emphasized that enrollment growth and new income resources are needed for CPH to move toward future budget stability.
But does CPH really begin the fiscal year with a “balanced” operating budget of $184.3 million? It turns out the budget is “balanced” partly using anticipated revenue from projected enrollment growth of 3 percent in 2026-27 (along with a final installment from the historic $458 million investment of polytechnic funding and new CSU allocations to CPH). Given the announced enrollment projections of very little to no enrollment growth for 2026-27, CPH may be looking at balancing this year’s budget with additional budget cuts.
The atmosphere at the Fall Welcome next took on an even more somber note as Carvajal said CSU and state research into the Humboldt campus and region uncovered “numerous concerns” about CPH’s future, starting with enrollment: Where will tomorrow’s CPH students come from?
Carvajal said because Humboldt’s pipeline for future student prospects is more challenging than at other CSU campus locations, “we must continually work in the future to get a bigger piece of a shrinking pie [of potential students] to grow enrollment numbers or to even remain flat.” In a big change at CPH, there was no mention of the oft-repeated past projections that CPH would soon be growing to enroll 11,000 students.
Carvajal outlined the challenging reality of shrinking numbers of high school graduates:
• The North Coast region (Humboldt, Del Norte, Lake and Mendocino counties) had only 3,094 high school grads last year. But only 33 percent of them had completed the required coursework for admission to a CSU campus (the lowest percentage of any region in the state). The number of high school graduates in the North Coast region is projected to drop another 15.5 percent in the next 10 years (second worst drop for a region in the state).
• Statewide, the number of high school graduates is expected to decline by 9 percent in the next 10 years and only 54 percent of those high school grads are expected to pursue going to college. Fewer than half of that 54 percent are expected to have completed the required coursework for admission to a CSU campus.
• As for the Los Angeles region, the source of the largest share of currently enrolled CPH students, its numbers of high school graduates are projected to be down nearly 20 percent in the next 10 years (the worst drop for a region in the state).
To plan for those enrollment projections and other campus concerns covered at the rest of the meeting (including the four- and six-year graduation rates), Carvajal said his administration will create a new Strategic Planning Council as well as a new Community/Regional Advisory Group. But before ending the meeting and in keeping with his style of seeking feedback from any individual or group he meets, Carvajal asked for help on two questions from those in attendance:
“It is a given that we want prospective students to come here, but what can and should Cal Poly Humboldt do better than any other similar college or university those prospective students might consider?”
“Our institution is proud of its strong relationship with Humboldt County, but the state of California and the CSU are funding Cal Poly Humboldt to be Northern California’s polytechnic university. In what ways can and should we positively impact this entire region we are funded to serve?”
Since CPH’s future affects us all, let’s offer any good ideas in response to those questions to President Carvajal.
Mark Larson (he/him) is a retired Cal Poly Humboldt journalism professor and active freelance photographer who likes to walk.
This article appears in Condors of the North Coast.