Colleges Assess Damage of Bond Failure : Education: Proposition 143 promised $450 million for state colleges and universities. Expansion plans may be changed, delayed or scuttled.

Voter rejection on Tuesday of a $450-million higher education construction bond measure means students will be squeezed into existing colleges and universities and planned new campuses probably will be delayed, officials of all three segments of California higher education said Friday.

“This puts a dark cloud over a year of planning and leaves many necessary projects in jeopardy,” said Ellis McCune, chancellor of the 20-campus California State University system. “It is a tragedy for higher education.”

Pressing needs for construction on existing campuses must be deferred, and it may not be possible to open the new San Marcos campus in northern San Diego County in the fall of 1992 as planned, McCune added. In addition, plans for off-campus centers in Contra Costa and Ventura counties will be delayed.

“We’ve just got to face up to the reality that we might not be able to grow,” said William B. Baker, vice president for budget and university relations at the University of California.

UC plans considerable expansion at its Davis, Riverside, San Diego and Santa Cruz campuses, as well as a new San Joaquin Valley campus. But Baker said the failure of Proposition 143 “gives us cause for concern . . . that we’re going to have enough revenue to even stay where we are,” much less open a 10th campus.

The higher education proposal was defeated 51.3% to 48.7%, the first time a college and university bond issue has failed since 1968.

It failed throughout the San Joaquin Valley, even though UC is planning to open its first campus in that part of the state by the end of this decade. The proposition also lost heavily in Riverside County, where there has been a UC campus for many years.

The Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, meeting Friday in Salinas, established a new Commission for Innovation to study possible alternative ways to provide instruction without building new facilities.

The new commission will study the possibility of offering community college courses through telecommunications to students at home and in the workplace, said Ann Reed, spokeswoman for the 107-campus two-year college system. “It can’t be business as usual,” Reed said.

Although higher education officials were generally dismayed by Tuesday’s result, they saw a few silver linings among the clouds.

“I really don’t think this was an anti-higher education vote,” like 1968, said William L. Storey, an assistant director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission. “People (this year) were concerned about the economy and war in the Middle East. In times like these, people tend to be cautious about spending money.”

“If this is just a one-year aberration, it’s not too significant,” UC’s Baker said, “but if this turns out to be the beginning of a three-, four- or five-year dry well on capital spending, then we’ve got real trouble.”

If UC cannot expand on existing campuses, especially at Davis and Riverside, “that certainly will slow down plans for a 10th campus,” Baker said.

The current timetable calls for the UC Board of Regents to narrow the choices for a new campus in the Fresno area to two or three sites next March and to make a final decision a year later.

CSU Chancellor McCune said the priority list will be adjusted to give preference to projects that increase student capacity.

Coming on top of a $100-million cut in the CSU operating budget, these construction cuts make this “the worst year yet and next year looks like it could be even worse,” McCune added.

The bond issue failure compounds a serious overcrowding problem at many community colleges throughout the state.

A study completed last September found that 28 new campus sites would be needed in the next 14 years to accommodate expected enrollment.