UC Growth Will Require 10th Campus by 2004, President Says

The University of California will need a 10th campus by the year 2004 and possibly earlier, UC President David Gardner said Wednesday.

But where it will be, which academic fields it will emphasize and whether it will concentrate on teaching graduate students or undergraduates still have not been decided, Gardner told a Sacramento Press Club luncheon.

UC officials in the past have said that the San Joaquin Valley probably has the strongest claim as home for a 10th campus, and Gardner has expressed interest in such a location.

Gardner said the nine UC campuses, which have a total of 152,000 students, anticipate an additional 30,000 students by the year 2000.

“Can that enrollment growth be accommodated on existing campuses? The answer to that is yes,” Gardner said. But there will be an additional surge of enrollments between 2000 and 2004 of still another 16,000 students, and “there is no way the existing campuses can accommodate that growth.”

Gardner said that absorbing 30,000 more students at the nine campuses over the next 13 years could bring stiff political opposition from residents near at least three of those campuses.

In general, Gardner said, the plan calls for the Berkeley, UCLA and San Francisco medical school campuses to remain at their current enrollments, and for substantial growth at the Davis, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses. And, he said, “Irvine and San Diego will explode.”

The amount of growth and how fast are especially sensitive questions at the Davis, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses, Gardner said.

“Those are three no-growth communities, so these are not questions that we ask idly,” he said.