Four schools are expected to announce as early as Thursday that they plan to leave the Mountain West Conference and join the Pac-12, sources confirmed to ESPN.

According to sources, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Fresno State have applied for Pac-12 membership, which is scheduled to begin in the 2026-27 academic year.

They would join Oregon State and Washington State, the two remaining schools in the conference after the league folded last summer.

Mountain West charter requires departing schools to pay an exit fee of about $18 million with two years’ notice. That’s the amount the four schools intend to pay, one source said. (With one year’s notice, that amount would rise to $36 million.)

The Pac-12 is expected to be able to help schools with exit fees, in part due to fees retained for distributing media rights to departing members and other conference assets. The conference would also have to pay an additional $43 million in poaching fees as stipulated in the scheduling agreement between the conferences this year, which resulted in both OSU and WSU playing six Mountain West opponents.

Once those four new additions are confirmed, the conference would need to add two more to meet the NCAA’s minimum requirements. The conference is in the first of a two-year grace period provided by the NCAA bylaws to stay below the minimum in the event of departures.

The news that four schools will join the Pac-12 was first reported by Yahoo Sports.