Cal Poly's 4-year grad rate on the rise

Author

Carly Heltzel
January 14, 2026

Good morning. It’s Monday, and I’m looking at BottleRock music festival’s newly dropped lineup, with tickets going on sale tomorrow for Napa Valley’s May event. Onto the five Cal Poly, SLO and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Cal Poly’s freshmen are graduating in four years more than ever before — and more than any other Cal State campus. The university’s four-year graduation rate is 62.8% compared to the Cal State-wide average of 37.3%, a difference of nearly 25%. And the 2025 rate was the highest it has been in at least 20 years. Two-year graduation for transfers is also up, but Pell Grant recipients, who are typically from low income households, is still the lowest category.

2.

Highway 1 will fully reopen to cars today for the first time in three years after storms washed out the road. The closure supported complex, stabilizing repairs held up in recent storms. One official called Highway 1 reopening an economic “lifeline” for communities south of the slide who have seen a 40% decrease in tourism, its biggest economy. A hotel general manger said the reopening “will be like getting back the oxygen we’ve been deprived of for so long.”

3.

A Holocaust survivor, known as the youngest twin who survived Dr. Josef Mengele’s twin experiments, will speak at Cal Poly tonight at the Performing Arts Center tonight, free for students. Now 84 years old, she lived through Mengele’s famously fatal “Angel of Death” experiments on Jewish twins, and she lost her twin, older sister and mother during the Holocaust. One member of the Jewish group organizing the event said students will be the “last generation” to hear these stories.

4.

As California expanded parole opportunities for prisoners — like people convicted in their youth and elderly people who are thought to have more parole potential — the rate of people granted parole has dropped significantly. And there’s not one reason why. Older prisoners struggling at hearings, a lack of urgency from young people, a high bar for paroling sex offenders and an increasingly scrutinized digital footprint in prison are all contributors.

5.

The Morro Bay Bird Festival returns starting tomorrow, with opportunities to join a few free events or volunteer and gain access to a birding wonderland. The festival is ranked fifth in the nation, with a diverse array of fowl at visitors’ fingertips. Attendees from last year came from over 35 states, for their pick of the festival’s 260 events. “Morro Bay is a one of a kind place for birds,” one former tour guide said.