Students who enroll at the future UniverCity at Chula Vista will be able to earn a nursing degree from San Diego State University. Or they could get a public health degree from UC San Diego, or gain professional certificates in healthcare, business or technology.
There may also be options to pursue degrees from Cal State San Marcos and even study with Mexican universities.
The campus, which opens its first building this year, will offer a novel approach to higher education, as a hybrid institution offering degrees from the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems.
Assemblymember David Alvarez has made the campus a top priority since he was elected in 2022. I asked him why it’s needed and what the next steps are to build it.
“There is no four-year degree program in the South Bay,” Alvarez told me. “Chula Vista is the largest city in California without a four-year institution.”
Discussions about that educational gap have been ongoing for decades. In 2006 a group of California education leaders and local officials proposed building a university and research park in Chula Vista, to improve higher education access and promote economic development.
By 2014 the city acquired nearly 400 acres of land for the new campus. But in 2017 the state Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded that there wasn’t enough enrollment demand for a single UC or CSU campus. So proponents agreed on a multi-institutional campus, focused on training students for crucial jobs.
“The only way to make an argument that a university was needed here was to demonstrate that there were workforce needs that weren’t being met,” in fields such as healthcare and nursing, Alvarez said.
He took up the torch in 2022, passing legislation that reserved the land for university use and getting $25 million for the Millenia Library, a library and classroom complex. It’s scheduled to open this year as the first building of the new higher education campus. Additional classroom buildings, housing and retail space are in planning stages for later years, Alvarez said.
The first group of 30 nursing students will begin their studies in the fall, said Sonja Pruitt-Lord, interim vice provost for San Diego State. They’ll pursue Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees, to become clinical specialists, healthcare administrators or nursing professors.
While students will still attend some classes at the main campus of San Diego State, they’ll do clinical training at nursing simulation facilities in Chula Vista, she said. Those are rooms furnished with medical equipment and mannequins that simulate childbirth, heart attacks and other events.
“It’s state of the art nursing spaces,” Pruitt-Lord told me. “It’s designed in such a way that they look like hospital rooms.”
In fall 2026, another group of 50 San Diego State students working on a bachelor of science in nursing will start in Chula Vista. The campus will also offer a joint program with Southwestern College that will allow students to become registered nurses through the community college and then take upper division coursework in Chula Vista to complete bachelor’s degrees.
“We have a critical nursing shortage in the state of California and the country,” Pruitt-Lord said. “Southwestern College has an amazing nursing program, so this is an opportunity to partner with them.
More groups of San Diego State nursing students could enroll in the following years and the university will consider adding degrees in disciplines such as public administration, homeland security and other healthcare and technological fields, Pruitt-Lord said.
Also in 2026, UC San Diego would offer a pilot program to 30 students working on bachelor’s degrees in public health, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said in a report to the legislature in February.
Plus the campus will host extension courses from both universities. Students could earn certificates through UC Extended Studies in fields such as lactation consulting, accounting or early childhood education. San Diego State may offer courses through its Global Campus expansion program for students working toward degree programs, or professional certificates in areas such as project management, human resources and cybersecurity.
Cal State San Marcos may offer degrees in healthcare, conservation and resource studies, or film and media arts. And Mexican universities could provide U.S. students the chance to earn international degrees, Alvarez said.
While the shared campus is unusual, it’s not unheard of. Alvarez and his staff visited Auraria Campus in Denver Colorado, which hosts Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and University of Colorado Denver.
Getting the different higher education systems to line up in Chula Vista will be key, Alvarez said.
“My job is to get these segments to learn to work together, to be collaborative,” he said. “We need to learn to work cooperatively in government generally, but certainly in education, because we don’t have the resources to do things entirely on our own.”
Lawmakers Enlist New EPA Chief in South Bay Sewage Fight
California U.S. Reps. Scott Peters and Juan Vargas and Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff asked federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to visit the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant to see how the cross-border sewage crisis is affecting San Diego communities.
“Since 2018, more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sewage, trash, and unmanaged stormwater have flowed across the United States-Mexico border into the Tijuana River Valley and neighboring communities,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter Tuesday.
The same day, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre learned that the EPA had rejected her request to declare the Tijuana River Valley a Superfund site. It was the second time Aguirre had made that pitch, but the EPA responded that there was no new information to support superfund designation.
Related: Politico did a story Friday about how the issue is getting attention in D.C. “The issue grabbed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s attention earlier this month when a construction incident in Mexico sent untreated sewage into the Tijuana River. Since then, he has publicly pressured America’s southern neighbor to focus on the problem — and pay for it.”
The report claims Zeldin has demanded daily reports on the problem.
Lawmakers Blame Newsom for Plastic Problems
Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t doing his job to cut plastic pollution, state Sen. Catherine Blakespear said. Blakespear has made plastic waste a signature issue, passing a law last year to close loopholes in California’s plastic bag ban.
She and other lawmakers are criticizing Newsom for what they consider his failure to enforce an earlier law that requires producers to make sure all single-use packaging and plastic utensils sold in the state is recyclable or compostable, and that two-thirds of that is recycled.
Blakespear said Newsom is failing to make sure that plastic producers “take responsibility for the end-of-life management of their plastic.”
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.