A new state assembly bill going through the state’s Higher Education Committee could help SDSU get independent doctoral programs in engineering.
Earlier this year, Assemblymember David Alvarez, who represents southern San Diego, introduced Assembly Bill 2693, which would allow California State University system schools to award doctoral degrees without the approval of the University of California system.
SDSU is prevented from awarding many independent doctoral degrees by a 1960s policy plan that gives the UC system broad doctoral authority while CSUs are limited to undergraduate and master’s programs.
This policy was amended in 2023 to allow CSUs to offer professional or applied doctoral degrees, so long as they do not duplicate doctoral programs offered at any UC school.
Last year, the College of Engineering submitted a conceptual doctoral proposal, which they specifically tailored not to duplicate any UC program.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García summarily rejected this proposal without explanation.
Alvarez’s bill would eliminate this non-duplication provision to get more doctoral programs into CSUs, citing the need for more affordable Ph.D. programs to meet “California’s substantial economic and workforce needs.”
When asked by The Daily Aztec about support for the bill, the university said, “SDSU generally does not take independent positions on state legislation and instead works through the CSU Chancellor’s Office, which represents the system on legislative matters.”
SDSU Engineering Doctoral Proposals
Early this school year, each of the four departments in the College of Engineering submitted Ph.D. program proposals to the university.
Ping Lu, a professor and chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, said SDSU decided to send only one proposal to the chancellor because “they were aware of some upper administration at CSU level not really liking Ph.D. proposals.
García summarily dismissed this proposal through an email stating that “conceptual proposals for independent Ph.D. programs in the CSU are prohibited at this time.”
She did not give a reason for the dismissal, Lu said.
“We spent a tremendous amount of time to prepare this proposal,” Lu said. “In that period, no one had told the faculty, ‘your Ph.D. program proposals are prohibited.’ And even after we were told we’re prohibited, no one explained to us why.”
In response, the College of Engineering asked the Chancellor’s office to reconsider her decision in a letter dated Sept. 19, 2025. The SDSU University Senate later passed a resolution expressing a vote of no confidence in Chancellor García last November, citing the program dismissals and other grievances such as financial management, AI policy and free speech rights.
Lu and other faculty claim that the decision works against the CSU mission.
“[CSU is] the largest public university system in the country,” Lu said. “Yet, we are not allowed to offer independent Ph.D. programs in most disciplines with very few exceptions.”
In a letter to the CSU Trustees on Oct. 19, 2025, the College of Engineering writes that, “SDSU remains the only R1-designated university in the United States forbidden to have independent doctoral programs.”
R1 designation is given to universities with annual research spending over $50 million and with at least 70 research doctorates awarded annually.
California Underperforms in Doctoral Degrees
Lu and Luciano Demasi, another professor of aerospace engineering, find that the current limitations on Ph.D. programs at CSUs are stifling research in California.
Demasi cited data that shows California underperforms many other U.S. states in doctoral education, despite being the most populous state and generating the most GDP.
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found in 2021 that California ranked ninth in research doctoral graduates per capita, with a percentage of graduates less than half that of Massachusetts.
California also ranked 13th in doctoral graduates per state GDP, according to the same study.
Demasi attributed these shortfalls to California’s outdated higher education policy, claiming it gives one public university system, UC, authority over the other, CSU.
“This is an artificial constraint that we only have in California,” Demasi said.
Demasi said an aerospace Ph.D. at SDSU would be especially beneficial because of local industry research and workforce needs.
“Few people realize that the aerospace industry in the state of California is much bigger than the entertainment industry or agriculture,” Demasi said. “And Southern California, including San Diego, Los Angeles area, is basically the biggest aerospace hub in the country.”
Conflict with Undergraduate Education
Critics of expanding doctoral programs to CSUs argue that Ph.D. programs would displace funding and space for undergraduate students.
“The argument that they use in general is that, ‘If you do Ph.D., you undermine undergraduate research,’” Demasi said. “Actually, it’s the very opposite.”
Demasi argued that the collaboration between Ph.D. researchers and undergraduates would be mutually beneficial and that Ph.D. students would be an asset to the faculty.
Doctoral researchers would not take away funding but instead bring in more money through research grants.
The new bill would preserve existing guidelines in the law: doctoral programs must be funded through existing budgets, doctoral enrollment cannot displace undergraduate enrollment and tuition cannot exceed that of a UC.
Duplication in Research
Currently, the process for creating a CSU Ph.D. program requires review and approval by the UC. Proposals can be rejected if they are deemed to duplicate an existing UC program.
Lu said this constraint is designed to limit competition from outside the UC, even though the UC system has multiple programs with similar focuses.
According to Lu, the engineering department conducted a thorough analysis of each relevant UC Ph.D. program to design proposals that wouldn’t duplicate any existing program.
Although the engineering proposal was dismissed by the Chancellor before even reaching the UC for review, Lu said other SDSU doctoral proposals were effectively “shut down” by the UC without formally informing SDSU that the proposals had been rejected.
“As a whole, [the UCs] are pretty united in being against CSU having any meaningful, independent Ph.D. program, in engineering in particular,” Lu said.
Asfaw Beyene, a professor of mechanical engineering, said duplication in research should not even be a concern because Ph.D. students can’t receive their degree if they duplicate research.
“Duplication is controlled by the peer review process,” Beyene said. “We don’t duplicate research and publish. In fact, it’s illegal. It’s called plagiarization.”
Joint Doctoral Program
Currently, SDSU only offers independent doctorates in nursing, physical therapy, public health and education leadership.
SDSU partners with UC schools to offer 21 joint doctoral programs, where the two campuses collaborate in Ph.D. research, including four joint engineering programs with UC San Diego.
Beyene said the joint doctoral programs require extensive coordination between the two universities and have proven to be “slow, limited in scope, and insufficient to meet statewide workforce demand.”
According to Beyene, UCSD also determines the number of SDSU students admitted to the program, and that number has been dwindling.
Chris Davami is one of those few researchers from SDSU. His Ph.D., which focuses on navigation for spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars, is fully funded by NASA.
“It would be nice to have more Ph.D. students in each lab,” Davami said. “Right now, it seems like there’s only one or two. At UCSD, my lab has like six Ph.D. students.”
Davami said he found some benefits from the joint program, such as more advisors and double opportunities to apply for funds.
Davami does almost all of his research at SDSU, which Beyene said proves SDSU has the faculty and structure to support an independent program.
Beyene, Demasi and Lu felt confused when the engineering proposal was rejected last year, but have hope that SDSU will have its own Ph.D. program.
“We never give up, because we see the importance of this,” Damasi said. “So now the approach is trying to hopefully change the law.”
The bill has been referred to the committee on higher education and it is unclear when it will be voted on.
