State Urgently Needs 3 More Universities, Study Says

California must build at least three more public university campuses by the year 2000 or face a severe enrollment crunch and a possible blow to the economy, according to a state legislative report released Friday.

The study called for the construction of an additional University of California campus and two more California State University campuses, but offered no specifics on possible locations or financing. The report conceded that the costs would be enormous but said that “to fail to do so because of financial fears now will only imperil our future well-being, our economy and our society.”

The study by the staff of the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education projected a 39% increase in the annual number of high school graduates in California in the last decade of this century. In addition, a hoped-for increase in the number of community college students who will transfer to a UC or a Cal State campus will worsen what the report called “a crisis of capacity.”

Fresno Area Mentioned

The idea of a 10th UC campus has been much discussed recently, with the Fresno area often mentioned as a possible site. In addition, Cal State officials concede that the satellite campuses planned in Ventura and northern San Diego County may one day become the 20th and 21st full campuses in that system. The draft report is expected to strongly bolster the arguments for such expansions.

The 125-page report, “California Faces California’s Future: Education for Citizenship in a Multicultural Democracy,” is “a powerful and coherent document” that will be the basis for hearings scheduled to begin later this month, according to Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), committee chairman. The joint committee is then expected to produce final recommendations and legislative proposals.

The report is the latest step in a movement to change California’s three-tiered system of higher education, which is governed by a master plan adopted in 1960 and reviewed 15 years ago. Last year, a citizen’s commission review of the master plan issued a report that led to proposed legislation aimed at strengthening the community college system. That legislation is still pending in a conference committee.

Ethnic Interests

Many of the report’s proposals are devoted to increasing the number of ethnic minorities who enroll at and are graduated from state universities. The sizes of those groups are expected to grow much faster than that of white Californians in the next two decades. The study stressed that by certain measurements, the percentage of whites who receive bachelor degrees from state universities is now four times that of Latinos and blacks, although Asians do three times better than whites.

“The current numbers indicate an emerging social catastrophe, one of an ever-widening gap between communities who are well-educated, employed, wealthy and comfortable, and other communities who are undereducated, unemployed or underemployed, excluded and alienated,” stated the report, which was written by M. Brian Murphy, the committee’s chief consultant.

Among its other proposals:

A possible change in admissions standards to UC and Cal State. According to the current Master Plan rules, students are eligible for UC if they rank academically in the top 12.5% of all California high school graduates and can attend a Cal State school if they are in the top 33.3%. But, the report said, that may hurt the chances of minority and rural students. It proposes further study of ranking students within their own high schools rather than against statewide averages.

Asking the state universities to rely less on standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, in making admissions decisions. Those tests long have been criticized as culturally biased against minorities. The test scores should be viewed only as a supplement to admission applications, according to the report.

Making it much easier for a student to transfer from a two-year community college to a four-year institution by better coordinating curricula and guaranteeing such transfers to students who complete specified course work. In addition, each community college should offer special counseling to potential transfer students.

A major expansion in financial aid and work-study programs for college students and investigation of allowing repayment of student loans through public service employment. Also, it calls for an expansion of child care facilities at all state colleges and universities.

More programs for joint doctorates between UC and Cal State campuses and more money for academic research at Cal State campuses. Cal State wants to offer doctorates, something state government has restricted to the more research-oriented UC.

A renewed emphasis on undergraduate education, with special attention to interdisciplinary, ethnic, foreign language and international studies.

Murphy, the report’s author, said in an interview Friday that he believes California’s public higher education system is “the most remarkable in the industrialized world,” but he added that it is troubled. According to Murphy, the state universities are too insular and bureaucratized and have not done enough to attract ethnic minorities as students and teachers.

“The universities have to think of themselves as participants in making society more equitable, rather than just being a recipient,” he said.