The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) voted today to consolidate East Georgia State College (EGSC) and Georgia Southern University.

This action is the first step in a careful process that will take more than a year. Final board approval of the newly consolidated institution is expected to come after a vote by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). A consolidation timeline is dependent upon those approvals.

“The consolidation of East Georgia State College with Georgia Southern University increases our ability to improve student success while expanding access to high-skilled degree programs that attract industry and help the state thrive,” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue. “By using public resources as efficiently as possible, we’re making sure every dollar saved is reinvested into those programs that truly empower our students, support our faculty and strengthen our communities for a brighter future. It’s my expectation that by joining forces, opportunities for students in Emanuel County and our surrounding areas here will grow.”

Today’s action by the board marks the sixth round of consolidation within USG and follows the six guiding principles for consolidation approved by the board in November 2011. These include:

• Increase opportunities to raise education attainment levels. Enhancing opportunities for students to raise their education attainment levels will be a goal.

• Improve accessibility, regional identity and compatibility. Geographic proximity, transportation corridors, student backgrounds, ensuring as much as possible a cultural fit, and other factors which strengthen the qualitative aspects of campus offerings will be considered.

• Avoid duplication of academic programs while optimizing access to instruction. Consideration will be given to demand for degrees, program overlaps and duplications, and optimal institutional enrollment characteristics sufficient to offer and support the needed array of services.

• Create significant potential for economies of scale and scope. Consideration will be given to the potential for achieving cost efficiency in service delivery, degree offerings and enrollment.

• Enhance regional economic development. Consideration will be given to consolidations with the potential to improve economic development through enhanced degree programs, community partnerships and improved student completion.

• Streamline administrative services while maintaining or improving service level and quality. Potential for administrative efficiencies and savings which yield more effective service will be considered. In addition, functional consolidations on a regional basis will be analyzed.

USG’s consolidation initiative began in 2011 as a way for the system to prioritize efficiency and control administrative costs while maintaining the high standards of its teaching, research and service mission. In November 2011, the board approved its guiding principles for any consolidations to be considered by the system. In January 2012, it approved an initial recommendation to consolidate eight of the system’s then-35 colleges and universities.

Five additional consolidations have since been recommended and approved. The initiative led to an estimated $30 million in administrative savings, which were redirected to hiring faculty and staff and enhancing student services on campuses. An independent researcher’s review of the first five consolidations within USG also documented increases in one-year retention rates for first-time undergraduates as well as in four-year graduation rates.

“Since its founding as Emanuel County Junior College, EGSC has been educating and serving our community for over 50 years and that won’t stop now,” state Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, said. “It’s essential that as the system streamlines and operates more efficiently, we safeguard access to higher education in the local area and keep the EGSC spirit going. I believe that’s being done with this effort, and I know the board and Chancellor Perdue are committed to leaving no aspiring college student behind.”

Upon completion, the consolidation of Georgia Southern and EGSC will bring the number of institutions within the university system to 25. The new institution will retain EGSC’s identity while becoming a part of Georgia Southern University, to be led by President Kyle Marrero. The consolidation will enable USG to better serve students, broaden academic programs offered in Georgia’s Lower Coastal Plain region and reinvest savings into academics to improve student success.

An implementation team, with representatives from both institutions, will soon be formed to work out the many details associated with the consolidation. The team will prepare and submit the required documentation to SACSCOC. USG and the institutions will also hold campus and community listening sessions in the coming months to seek input on ways to best design the new institution to serve its region and the state. The first listening session will be tomorrow at EGSC’s Swainsboro campus.