As a Wahoo, I don't have the "VA Tech" issue, but I assume journos write it that way because their style guides tell them abbreviating states is acceptable, and they don't care that they're doing it to a trademark that doesn't support abbreviation.
"Cal Poly" is shorthand for the SLO campus. It's the original, and the most established one. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/13/ca...
Cal Poly Humboldt was only renamed three years ago. It's going to take a few generations to get the same cache as SLO.
Funny thing: I met a German physician who works in California now. His degree is from Humboldt University, an old and incredibly prestigious university in Berlin. He found it "funny" (provincial) that people so often register "Humboldt University" as "Humboldt State". One of these things is not like the other!
VA tech does not have the most agreeable ring compared to the others you listed tho that's for sure.
Incidentally, the author is the wife of physicist Sean Carroll. She certainly knows how to abbreviate Virginia Tech, but Ars Technica's editors will want to influence the title to appeal to a global audience.
"VA Tech" is a reasonable balance between writing something unambiguous for a global audience, but short enough to be interesting. Nobody's going to be interested in an article titled "Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University scientists build a better fog harp."
Of course, you still need to read the article itself to find out what the heck is a "fog harp," and why we need a better one.
But seriously, I'm so glad to hear that Violent Assault Tech scientists have made the Fog Harp more efficient. Finally I can reliably surprise my victims! This truly is Value Added Tech, and in such high quality Vinyl Acetate that I'll never worry about Vaginal Atrophy again!