CSU Campus Asked for San Marcos

California State University officials say they want a full four-year university--the system’s 20th--in northern San Diego County, perhaps as early as 1995, potentially accelerating plans for what was to have been an upper division satellite campus to San Diego State University.

The finding, contained in a yearlong study of North County’s growth by the Cal State chancellor’s office in Long Beach, is the first official proclamation by university officials that a full-service campus in San Marcos is justified. But officials cautioned that the study does not constitute a formal funding request for a new four-year campus.

The study was conducted in response to a demand from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee in Sacramento that the Cal State Board of Trustees justify the use of the 300-acre San Marcos site, which the state purchased several months ago.

The site, located on a former chicken ranch along the south side of California 78 in San Marcos, was originally selected in 1986 to serve as a satellite campus to San Diego State, with upper division and graduate courses to begin in the fall of 1992. Currently, Cal State San Diego provides upper division and graduate courses for about 1,500 students in leased offices in San Marcos, a town of about 25,000, and the selection of a permanent campus site was hailed as a significant step in meeting the higher education needs of exploding North County.

The report justified the need for all 300 acres by pointing to the rapid growth in the North County area and the need for a four-year university. Area students have been confronted by an increasingly congested 30-mile or longer drive into San Diego for higher education studies.

There has been speculation that the San Marco campus would one day evolve into a full four-year school with a full palette of offerings for lower and upper division students as well as graduate studies.

The campus could expect at least 5,000 full-time equivalent students by the year 2000, and 15,000 to 20,000 by 2020, the study said.

The last Cal State campus to be built was the Bakersfield site in the mid-1960s.

Anthony Moye, deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs for the CSU system, said the proposed four-year university already has won the endorsement of two North County community colleges--Palomar in San Marcos and MiraCosta in Oceanside, as well as officials from UC San Diego, UC Riverside and UC Irvine.

Already, $50 million is planned in order for the campus to open in 1992 for upper division and graduate studies, and Moye said it is too early to figure the cost of a full-fledged campus. Much of the development of the site--even the immediate development of the upper division satellite campus--hinges on the success of a November bond issue proposal in which California voters will be asked to approve $600 million for California’s higher education needs, Moye said.