By Nick Martinez, October 28, 2026
Cal Poly Pomona is currently falling short of its overall enrollment goal by 6%, according to Provost Terri Gomez.
Though Fall 2025 new student applications showed promise of growth and Jessica Wagoner, senior associate vice president of enrollment management, said the university is “hopeful” to increase enrollment to its goal of 27,609 students, the enrollment yield and the percentage of students enrolled remained on the decline, according to CPP News.
While this projected enrollment increase comes after the university received a record number of applicants during the 2024 fall semester, with 51,022 applications, the enrollment yield continued to decline in comparison to the University of California system, which admitted 100,947 students system wide.
CPP’s enrollment numbers did not meet its goal at this point. This is the case for the entire Cal State University System, which has been struggling with system-wide enrollment issues.
“For the past few years, the CSU system has been below the funding target for enrollment,” said Wagoner. “It’s a reallocation of funds. They’ve been taking certain funding from campuses that historically have not been meeting their funding targets and have moved it over to campuses like us that have more students.”
Some CSU campuses with declining enrollment include CSU East Bay, CSU Channel Islands and Cal Poly Humboldt, according to edsource.org.
CPP, in contrast, has continued to grow by 20% in enrollment since 2020 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment is projected to continue growth 10% annually in the coming years, according to Wagoner.
“We still have a gap in funding and where we are in enrollment,” Wagoner said. “But the good news is the growth this time is coming with funding. So, the best thing we can do is get closest to our funding target.”
Despite CPP reaching its goals, the state of California is attempting to reverse the decline across the entire CSU system with another strategy: direct admissions.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill 640, which looks to “increase access to higher education” following an enrollment decline during the COVID-19 pandemic by offering guaranteed admission to several campuses across the CSU system if a given student meets specific eligibility and criteria
However, Wagoner believes this initiative may have the opposite effect on CPP’s enrollment numbers as the university is not part of this program., but CPP has its own admissions strategy in mind.
Wagoner stated CPP will begin extending its own direct admissions program, noting “direct” to avoid confusion with the CSU-wide guaranteed admissions.
“We’re doing on-the-spot direct admission events over the next year, starting in December,” Wagoner said. “We’re going to invite freshmen from non-impacted majors who meet the CPP qualifications and be able to give them admission decisions during these visits.”
PolyTransfer, a first-year experience program, also ensures CPP remains accessible in the eyes of transfer students.
PolyTransfer Program Coordinator Claire Luevanos said the program offering support to prospective transfer students will continue to help enrollment and accessibility thrive by informing potential transfers about the process of both direct admissions and the traditional CSU application process.
“The goal of PolyTransfer Advantage is to support prospective students still at community colleges in addition to our current students,” Luevanos said. “We work with our community college partners, such as their transfer centers, and we put on different workshops. We actually just hosted a workshop in partnership with the Office of Admissions.”
As CPP’s enrollment continues to steadily grow and the university’s direct admissions program takes shape, some students have begun to see changes after each academic year.
Will Scholar, an anthropology student, has already noticed differences in his class sizes and has hopes for the future of his major.
“It seems like my classes have been more full the last couple semesters,” Scholar said. “Our department seems to get a lot of transfer students, so allowing easier entry will definitely help with enrollment.”
Feature image courtesy of Poly Transfer
