California, Clarion and Edinboro universities will get a new name under a consolidation plan likely to be approved Wednesday for a 60-day public comment period.

The necessity for a single name as well as a pledge to keep all three campuses open and fully operational are among the points made public in a 234-page consolidation plan posted on Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education website Monday, along with the agenda for the special board meeting.

The plan, which could become final this summer with approval by two-thirds of the board, is among the final steps in a proposal to consolidate the three struggling state-owned universities into a single financially sustainable academic powerhouse with three separate campuses by the 2022-23 academic year.

It is half of a two-part plan that calls for the consolidation of the three Western Pennsylvania universities. The other part consolidates Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities in northeastern Pennsylvania into a single operating unit.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, the union that represents faculty members and coaches at the universities, declined to offer any specific response to the plans. Association spokeswoman Kathryn Morton said the union “is reading the plans carefully — through a lens that keeps student concerns at the forefront.”

The two consolidation proposals refer to student success repeatedly as a top priority.

The proposal for the yet-to-be named Western Pennsylvania university represents the work of 421 students, faculty and staff from the three schools and addresses everything from the potential for expanded program offerings through shared resources to a proposal to the National Collegiate Athletic Association to maintain all individual Division II and I athletics programs at the three campuses.

According to the proposal, the new name would “incorporate the current location name for each partner university,” and be “selected from options that have been market-tested for their appeal to our target audiences.”

The universities are named for the towns where they were chartered as teacher prep academies about 150 years ago. They are the anchor employers in those small towns — and state officials have repeatedly said they aren’t going anywhere.

Officials said the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the agency that accredits colleges and universities in the mid-Atlantic, requires that the consolidated entity operate under a single name.

While system Chancellor Dan Greenstein painted the consolidation plans as an “opportunity to rise up together,” the lengthy proposals make no bones that this is a financial rescue plan. It follows a perfect storm of heavy debt left over from ambitious rebuilding plans, a declining pool of new high school graduates and state subsidies that rank 48th in the nation in terms of support for such schools. The factors left their mark on the universities, which are now heavily dependent on student tuition for operations.

Enrollment declines of 50% at Edinboro, 39% at Clarion and 27% at California over the last decade left fewer students to shoulder the burden of growing costs. Meanwhile, attractive dorms built less than 20 years ago operate at just under 80% capacity at California and Clarion and 73% capacity at Edinboro.

Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield face similar financial landscapes.

While the consolidation proposals offer no immediate end to red ink, they propose to take advantage of combined operations to offer a wider array of programs, reduce the cost to graduation by as much as 25% and see a small but gradual increase in enrollments.

The universities are among the 14 state-owned universities scattered across state charged with providing quality higher education to Pennsylvania residents at the lowest possible cost.

Other universities in the state system include: Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester. Only West Chester has seen significant enrollment increases over the last decade.

Statewide, the system has seen an enrollment decline of about 22% over the last decade.

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