Report: Colleges will need $1.5B more in 2019

[Ardent15]

-----

By the next decade, California’s public colleges are going to need space for nearly 400,000 more students.

That’s according to enrollment projections for higher education that the California Postsecondary Education Commission released this week.

A report called “Ready or Not, Here They Come” projects that the demand for undergraduate enrollment slots at University of California, California State University and community college campuses will increase by 16 percent, or 387,000 students, by 2019. That’s compared to the number of students the colleges served in 2008.

To accommodate all those additional students, the college systems will need $1.5 billion more in support in 2019 than what they received in 2008, the study found.

“The state will also need to backfill for unfunded students who are currently being served by the systems,” the report said. “Our figures reflect an annual average enrollment growth need of $139 million for each of the next 10 years; not included here are graduate instructional needs and capital needs.”

If the state does not fully fund enrollment for the three systems, to at least the 2008–09 level, 277,000 students face being turned away next year, the report concluded.

Most community college districts and CSU campuses, and all the UC campuses except UC Merced, do not have enough classroom space to meet enrollment demand, the study found.

The California Postsecondary Education Commission will use the findings to support long-range planning and assist the governor and Legislature in crafting a budget.

The Commission released enrollment projections for CSU campuses and community colleges last year, but the projections for UC were new, as was the compilation of all the data, a spokesman said.

The projections considered four key factors: recent trends in college-going rates of high school graduates, community college transfer rates, and persistence and graduation rates for students enrolled at the three college systems, a news release said.

Enrollment demand estimates the number of students who would enroll at a public institution if they could afford the fees and enrollment wasn’t constrained by reduced state funding.

http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2010/03/08/daily22.html

-----

Yeah, cutting education really seems like a great idea now.

[FarCenter]

1. With all of California's problems, you'd think that the population would drop by 2019