16 More Campuses Needed, Junior College Board Told

California will need at least 16 new community college campuses by the year 2005 to accommodate an expected increase of 400,000 students, the statewide Board of Governors of the two-year colleges was told Thursday.

The cost of constructing these new campuses and expanding existing campuses to capacity would be $1.8 billion in current dollars, Joseph Newmyer, the system’s vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, said at a board meeting here.

“Staggering amounts of money” will be needed “if California is to continue to fund an outstanding system of higher education, we being part of it,” said Scott W. Wylie, Board of Governors chairman.

Opening Due

No specific sites were mentioned, but college officials said new campuses would likely be built in high-growth areas, such as the Santa Clarita Valley and in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with expansions possible at existing campuses that still have room to grow, such as Irvine Valley College in Orange County.

The University of California is seeking three new campuses by the end of this century to go along with the nine existing UC campuses. The 19-campus California State University system is asking for five new campuses by 2005, in addition to the San Marcos campus, in northern San Diego County, that will open next year.

Current enrollment at the 107 community colleges that blanket the state is slightly more than 1.3 million, with an average campus size of 12,000.

Chancellor David Mertes said some of the 400,000 additional students expected in the next 16 years can be handled by better use of existing facilities.

“Building out” at existing campuses would cost about $700 million. But when all of that has been done, Mertes said, there will still be a need for 16 new campuses, enrolling about 130,000 students by the year 2005, at a cost of $1.1 billion.

The chancellor noted that the community college system does not have authority to redirect students from crowded campuses to those with more room, as do the University of California and the Cal State system. Planning for the two-year “commuter colleges” assumes that no student must travel more than 30 minutes to reach a campus.

Both Mertes and Newmyer said the projected 400,000 enrollment increase, a number provided by the state Department of Finance, might be too low.

Might Jump

If state population growth continues at its present rate and if larger numbers of blacks, Latinos and other “under-represented minorities” decide to go to college, community college enrollment might jump by 550,000 by 2005, they said.

The community college estimates, along with those of the University of California and the Cal State system, will be analyzed for the Legislature by the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

Higher education facilities are financed through state general obligation bonds and revenue bonds.

The community colleges received $242 million in construction funds from bond measures that were approved by voters in 1986 and 1988, and they will receive a portion of a $900-million higher education bond proposal still pending in the Legislature if it is approved.

However, that money will go to meet already existing needs not to build the new facilities the two-year colleges now seek.