Polytechnic University OKs Merger With NYU

Apparently not satisfied with just gobbling up Lower Manhattan, NYU has set its sights on expanding to Brooklyn. Yesterday, according to the Daily Eagle, the Board of Trustees of downtown Brooklyn's Polytechnic University voted overwhelmingly to approve a merger with NYU.

The Department of Education and New York State Board of Regents still need to sign off on the deal to make it official, but NYU's trustees have already voted in favor of the merger and it seems unlikely that any impediment to its completion will arise. Talk of the merger first surfaced three years ago, but faculty concerns and, more recently, suspicions of conflict of interest between members of the universities' two boards postponed the arrangement. Those obstacles appear to have since been surmounted to the satisfaction of all the parties involved.

On the surface, the merger would seem to benefit both schools, even though NYU is roughly 10 times larger than Polytechnic. Polytechnic will now have access to the vast wealth of resources and facilities held by NYU, while NYU will get to add an engineering school to their academic portfolio.