PASSWORDMANAGEMENT
A Snapshot of Success: CoBA鈥檚 Growth, Innovation, and Impact in the Fall 2025 Semester
The College of Business Administration (CoBA) gets an opportunity to innovate and have impact every semester of an academic year. Our success this Fall is representative of our continued evolution as the leading college of business focused on helping students rise up through business education. We have built a unique environment that educates, guides, and supports students on their journey to a new business career launch. Recent university rankings reflect who we are and the type of impact we are having. CSU San Marcos has been ranked #1 nationwide in the 2025 Social Mobility Index by , ranked #2 in California colleges, and #1 in the San Diego Region for Student Experience in the ranking. In a recent report by the Cal State System on , Cal State San Marcos was found to generate $18.50 in statewide industry activity for every dollar invested in the university by the state, the highest per dollar impact of all CSUs.
The success of the Fall 2025 semester is a result of our worldclass teacher-scholar faculty, our dedicated staff, our Executives in Residence, and community that has embraced our college and our students. Here are just a few examples of what we achieved.
Fall 2025 enrollment grew 8.5% year over year, a continuation of our double-digit growth of the previous two years. With 600 full time freshman joining us in the Fall, along with 410 transfers, our undergraduate population reached 3,226 students. This reflects the strength of our programs and the uniqueness of our position in the Southern California business education market. Graduate programs continued to thrive with 121 MBA students and 11 in our brand new Master of Science in Supply Chain Analytics program.
Student Success is at the heart of everything we do. Over 250 students were honored at the Fall Dean鈥檚 List Recognition Breakfast, with attendance reaching new heights. The Senior Experience Trade Show showcased 51 projects, engaging hundreds of students and industry partners. Our flagship BUS 300 program enrolled nearly 700 students, supported by 52 Executives-in-Residence (EIR) coaches who brought real-world expertise and guidance to every student in the course. Business networking is a critical skill for professional success and students were provided with hands-on experience through two Networking Nights where business professionals mix with BUS 300 students in an interactive setting. Each night drew 250 student attendees. We introduced 3 brand new in-person Mock Interview days where over 500 BUS 300 students gained firsthand experience being interviewed by over 110 professionals. Fall semester is also the start of CoBA鈥檚 2 mentoring programs known as the Peer Mentor Program and the Career Mentor Program. In the Fall, our mentorship programs served 334 students, with 210 students in the Peer Mentorship Program and 124 students in the Career Mentor program.
In the summer prior to Fall 2025, we completed 15 orientation events to welcome all new students to the CoBA family. We also served 150 high school students in our annual Summer Opportunity Workshop program. This year, we held our traditional workshops in Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship, Supply Chain Management, and AI / Cybersecurity. We expanded to a 5th program in partnership with NABA, a residential program in accounting and college success. The summer workshops provide an important recruitment pipeline and brand building opportunity for future enrollment.
Faculty achievements were numerous. Faculty helped launch the new MS in Supply Chain Analytics and are working to recruit the first new class of students in the future MS in Business Analytics. Faculty delivered more than 400 classes to serve student course needs. In demonstration of the research activity of our teacher-scholar faculty, over 7 new research publications have been achieved to date this academic year in journals like the Journal of Applied Accounting Research and the Production and Operations Management Journal. Many conference presentations and acceptances have also been accomplished to date, including at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. Future journal publications were also accepted like one at the Personnel Review journal.
Our 52 EIRs provided 2 hours of individual coaching to 700 BUS 300 students. Two new Monthly Coffee Connectors were held to bring together our EIRs to share best practices and to welcome potential community members who may want to become EIRs in the future. Faculty curriculum innovation was a defining theme of the Fall. Alongside the launch of new degree programs, we advanced 12 new course proposals and 25 redesigned courses. At least 2 potential new education offerings are also under development.
Community engagement remained a key strength of the college, with the Senior Experience Trade Show drawing in 200 attendees in the Fall. Our new Women in Business initiative, launched in early 2025, held 2 events in the Fall with over 120 attendees covering important topics such as the ethical use of AI in personal branding. As mentioned earlier, our community partners provided 51 projects for Senior Experience and our 52 volunteer EIRS provided individual coaching for all of our BUS 300 students. Our 59 EIRs from the community each volunteered 50 hours of time to provide one-on-one coaching for every BUS 300 student. In testament to the depth of the community in student learning and experiences, over 500 community members engaged with the college in the Fall across Networking Nights, Mock Interviews, Mentorship Programs, In the Executive鈥檚 Chair and other classes, student club guest speakers, and other such activities in the Fall. Our dedicated community partners reinforce CoBA鈥檚 commitment to real-world learning and industry collaboration.
The community supported CoBA through generous donor contributions to numerous programs and activities that support our students and the achievement of their potential. The local chapter of the Society of Information Management provided $10,000 in funds for student scholarships in the MIS area. The community generously provided over $67,000 across numerous CoBA areas as part of Giving Day 2025. This includes funds for endowed student scholarships in recognition of faculty and treasured CoBA alumni.
The development of new educational and research initiatives continued in the Fall. We continued our work on AI through the AI Hub and AI Curriculum taskforces. Future AI related programs and activities will help ready students for the new environment being shaped by this disruptive technology. The AI Hub will also provide education workshops in service to our community. Serving society is a goal of our future Analytics for Good Initiative which advanced in design during the Fall. CoBA鈥檚 partnership in the Resilient Entrepreneur Program (REP) is an additional program through which we serve the public. REP served 10 small business entrepreneurs from the community and Senior Experience teams in the Fall provided free consulting to REP participants to help them advance their businesses or business ideas.
As we close the Fall and celebrate a semester of growth, collaboration, and transformation, we look forward to a new beginning that will start with the Spring 2026 semester. While there will no doubt be challenges and areas to improve, we know the students, faculty, staff, and community of CoBA will continue to achieve new levels of achievement and success. It is amazing what we can achieve together in such little time. Thank you to all who are making this possible.