Cal Poly students will see a new general education (GE) template in the 2026-27 academic year once the university converts to semesters.
The change is a part of a statewide overhaul of transfer and degree pathways that began in California State University campuses in 2025. Cal Poly will be the last CSU to adopt the new California General Education Transfer Curriculum, known as the Cal-GETC.
While other CSU campuses implemented Cal-GETC in 2025, Cal Poly received a one-year extension to avoid managing two systems simultaneously.
“Cal Poly was allowed to delay implementation of the new CSU GE pattern to coincide with the semester conversion starting in Fall 2026,” university spokesperson Keegan Koberl said in an email to Mustang News. “This prevented us from having both quarter and semester versions and from running the quarter version for only one year, which would create confusion for students.”
READ HERE: Cal Poly begins transition to semesters with year-round operations on the horizon
Cal-GETC was created under Assembly Bill 928, a 2021 state law requiring a single GE framework across the CSU, CCC and UC systems. The law aims to make system-to-system transfers easier by unifying requirements that differed across state universities.
Before the aligning patterns, prospective transfer students were required to complete the “Golden Four,” other GE courses that varied by campus along with various major specific courses.
“If we had not applied Cal-GETC to all CSU students, we would have retained the historical difference where first-time first-year students had one GE template and transfer students had another,” Koberl said. “That situation is the reason AB 928 exists in the first place.”
Cal Poly’s transfer pattern was often stricter than those of other CSUs, meaning some community college students had to take additional classes to meet Cal Poly’s unique GE requirements before transferring.
By unifying GE patterns, Cal Poly’s transfer students will enter the university with coursework that aligns directly with degree requirements, reducing credit loss and duplicated classes.
“Starting in Fall 2026, and once we teach out CSU GE Breadth, there will be a single GE template across California public higher education,” Koberl said. “It will not matter which system you are in, what you study, or where you plan to go; there will be one template.”
Under the new system, students will complete fewer GE units, with one fewer lower-division arts or humanities course, the elimination of Area E, and no GE electives.
Current students will have a choice to switch
Current Cal Poly students will remain under their existing CSU GE breadth unless they choose to move to the new one. Students entering in fall 2025 will likely transition to the new catalog when semesters begin, while those starting in fall 2026 will automatically follow Cal-GETC.
“When the new catalog begins in fall 2026, the university plans to move first-year students admitted for Fall 2025 to the 2026-28 catalog,” Koberl said. “While they do have a choice of catalog, it’s been assessed that this move will benefit them, due to both the new GE template and the transition to semesters.”