County Lags in Local Students in Universities

Despite its relative affluence and top-caliber schools, Ventura County lags far behind counties of comparable size and wealth when it comes to shepherding students to college.

It has the sixth-highest family income in the state, but ranks 15th in nudging high school graduates on to higher education. And it sinks to the bottom third of the state’s 58 counties when comparing the number of students who find their way to four-year universities.

But perhaps the most compelling measure of educational need comes from those who have hit a dead end in pursuit of higher learning, people who are otherwise accomplished but who somehow feel incomplete without a university degree.

“That is still my dream,” said Oxnard Harbor Commissioner Jess Herrera, who despite being a leader in his community still longs to upgrade his 20-year-old associate of arts degree from Moorpark College.

“For many of us, this is still our Achilles’ heel,” Herrera said. “This is not just some piece of paper to hang on the wall, it’s an affirmation that you have accomplished something.”

Backed by such strong sentiments, a busload of civic leaders Wednesday will head to Long Beach to urge Cal State University leaders to end Ventura County’s decades-long wait for a four-year public university.

For the first time since the planning process began late last year, the full board of trustees will review the blueprint for transforming the now-shuttered Camarillo State Hospital into the university system’s 23rd campus.

Armed with charts and volumes of documents, Cal State planners will seek the board’s blessing to push forward with a plan to take over the hospital property as the first crucial step to launching the Cal State Channel Islands campus.

“We are the largest county in the state without a four-year public university, and we have a large and growing population that does not have access to higher education,” said Handel Evans, president of the budding Channel Islands campus.

“Yes, it’s time and it’s necessary,” Evans said. “And it will be the best thing to happen to Ventura County in the past 50 years.”

The absence of a public university has been a stumbling block for generations of local residents, educators say.

Over the years, the vast majority of high school graduates have been funneled into the community college system. And while many of those students have emerged with a solid academic foundation, they also have faced few local options to further their education.

Ventura City Councilman Jim Monahan is typical. He graduated from Ventura College in the early 1960s with a degree in business and a desire to pursue a four-year degree.

But his college career was cut short when his father fell terminally ill and he was needed at home to help run the family business.

With no public university nearby, Monahan said he had little choice but to let his college dream slip away.

“A lot of my friends were in the same boat,” the 62-year-old Ventura native said. “I guess I still could go back to school. But even now there’s no university here.”

Unlike many other counties, educators say Ventura County students have limited choices after graduating from high school or community college unless they are willing to leave home and can afford to do so.

Both Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara have off-campus centers in Ventura, but course offerings remain slim. There are private colleges in the area, such as Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and Thomas Aquinas near Santa Paula, but they cost upward of $15,000 a year.

Another option is to commute to a public university. From the proposed Camarillo campus--in the heart of Ventura County--it’s about 45 miles to Cal State Northridge and about 60 miles to UC Santa Barbara.

Still, Letty Alvarez decided to do just that after earning her associate of arts degree from Oxnard College in 1993. Married and the mother of four daughters, the lifelong Oxnard resident waited until all her children were in school--and she was in her early 30s--before becoming a full-time college student.

After obtaining her community college degree, she commuted to USC several days a week for two years until she earned her degree in public administration.

Her oldest daughter is a freshman this year at UC Berkeley. And she has two others in high school who are just starting to think about college.

Alvarez said it will be a shame if they are stuck with the same choices she had as a high school senior nearly 20 years ago.

“When I was 18, if there had been a four-year university here I would have gone,” Alvarez said. “That’s what I wanted. They talked about it, but it just never happened.”

A local state university has been on drawing boards for more than three decades, when then-Gov. Pat Brown authorized a study for potential Ventura County sites for the campus.

In 1969, the state bought 425 acres in Somis for a campus, but sold that land seven years later.

Nearly two decades later, Cal State officials targeted several hundred acres near the beach in Ventura, but opposition from nearby residents thwarted that project and university officials abandoned the site.

Cal State planners then looked north to Taylor Ranch, a sweeping hillside parcel that overlooks the Pacific Ocean near the junction of the Ventura Freeway and California 33. Once again, local opposition prompted Cal State officials to back away from that plan.

Now comes a plan to turn the shuttered psychiatric hospital near Camarillo into a college campus.

Initially, planners propose taking over the hospital property and turning it into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge by January 1999.

Eventually, when enrollment reaches about 6,000 full- and part-time students, planners say, the campus would be expanded into an independent four-year public university.

Key to that effort is creation of a partnership between the Cal State system and the Ventura County Community College District aimed at helping more students find their way to university campuses.

Last week, community college trustees approved a letter of intent outlining the district’s desire to plan curriculum in concert with the university and share space at the proposed Channel Islands campus.

“A rising tide lifts all boats,” said Oxnard College President Steven Arvizu, who wrote the board’s letter and who until a few months ago was vice president of academic affairs at the newest campus, Cal State Monterey Bay.

“The more support there is for education, the more choices and opportunities there are, the better off we are as a region,” he added. “What we have at the moment is a strong consensus that this developing Cal State University Channel Islands is important to all of us.”

Its importance was highlighted recently in a study commissioned by the Cal State system to gauge the educational needs of Ventura County residents.

According to that study, the county ranks only slightly below the state average in the number of students attending UC campuses, but ranks near the bottom--48th out of California’s 58 counties--when it comes to sending students to Cal State campuses.

The study also found there was a relatively high number of students who attended college but did not obtain a degree of any kind.

Moreover, the study said many students are choosing colleges based on proximity and costs, and concluded that perhaps an additional 5% to 10% of graduates would filter into the Cal State system if a campus were available nearby.

County schools Supt. Chuck Weis said he knows of many students who have been reluctant to leave the county after graduation because of their strong sense of community and deep family ties.

If a public university were in the area, he said, a flood of students would take advantage of that opportunity.

“There’s a powerful force in Ventura County, it’s like magnetism and it kind of holds you in place,” Weis said. “It’s unique and it’s wonderful, but it does tend to restrict opportunities for people and education is one of them. But there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be able to have those opportunities closer to home.”

For those students now pursuing a higher education, such opportunities can’t come quickly enough.

Santa Paula native Eric Barragan, 22, graduated from Ventura College last year with degrees in liberal arts and journalism. When he enrolled in Cal Lutheran University to continue his education, a cash shortage forced him to drop out after one semester.

He explored the extension courses offered by Cal State Northridge, but could not find the classes he needs to complete his major. And because of family and other obligations, he said he cannot readily pick up and leave the community.

“I want to stay close to home, and I don’t think I should have to stop my life in Santa Paula and leave everything behind because there’s not an affordable college here,” said Barragan, a member of the Santa Paula Union High School board of trustees. “I guess I’m just one of those people who is going to have to wait until this campus becomes a reality, if it ever does.”

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The Road to Higher Learning

Even though Ventura County has the sixth highest family income in California, it ranks 15th statewide in sending high school students to college. A study commissioned last year by the Cal State University system found that 55% of high school graduates attend college, but relatively few of them attend four-year universities.

Where They Enroll

(Percentage of high school graduates enrolling in each segment of higher education)

*--*

University California Community County of California State University College Total San Francisco 15.2 19.0 32.1 69.8 Sonoma 6.1 7.7 52.0 67.2 San Mateo 9.1 8.2 46.5 66.4 Santa Clara 11.3 10.6 41.2 65.1 Alameda 10.1 11.0 41.7 64.4 Contra Costa 10.4 8.7 42.5 63.0 Fresno 4.0 12.7 44.2 62.3 Santa Cruz 7.7 9.1 41.6 60.1 Sacramento 6.2 9.4 42.5 59.7 San Luis Obispo 5.4 9.6 42.6 58.9 Orange 10.3 8.2 37.6 58.8 Imperial 3.3 4.0 49.2 58.0 San Diego 8.2 10.3 36.3 57.3 Yolo 11.1 9.1 32.9 54.9 Ventura 6.7 5.3 41.2 54.7 STATEWIDE 7.6 9.2 36.2 54.9

*--*

* Does not include students who attend public and private colleges out of state

Source: California Postsecondary Education Commission

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Cal State Bound

Percentage of high school graduates by county attending Cal State University campuses

1. San Francisco: 19.0

2. San Benito: 13.8

3. Colusa: 13.2

4. Fresno: 12.7

5. Glenn: 12.7

6. Mono: 11.8

7. Butte: 11.4

8. Humboldt: 11.3

9. Alameda: 11.0

10. Santa Clara: 10.6

11. Los Angeles: 10.3

12. San Diego: 10.3

13. Madera: 9.9

14. San Luis Obispo: 9.6

15. Trinity: 9.5

16. Sacramento: 9.4

17. Santa Cruz: 9.1

18. Yolo: 9.1

19. Nevada: 8.9

20. Stanislaus: 8.9

21. Marin: 8.8

22. Mendocino: 8.8

23. Conta Costa: 8.7

24. Tuolumne: 8.7

25. El Dorado: 8.4

26. San Mateo: 8.2

27. Orange: 8.2

28. Solano: 8.0

29. Placer: 7.8

30. San Bernardino: 7.7

31. Tehama: 7.7

32. Sonoma: 7.7

33. Monterey: 7.6

34. Del Norte: 7.5

35. Kern: 7.3

36. Sutter: 7.2

37. San Joaquin: 6.9

38. Merced: 6.8

39. Napa: 6.7

40. Siskiyou: 6.3

41. Plumas: 6.3

42. Kings: 6.2

43. Amador: 6.1

44. Lake: 5.9

45. Riverside: 5.8

46. Mariposa: 5.7

47. Tulare: 5.5

48. Ventura: 5.3

49. Santa Barbara: 4.8

50. Modoc: 4.6

51. Sierra: 4.3

52. Imperial: 4.0

53. Shasta: 3.9

54. Lassen: 3.9

55. Calaveras: 3.6

56. Yuba: 3.1

57. Inyo: 2.3

58. Alpine: 0.0

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Fast Facts

Ventura County residents most in need of more access to higher education are those unable to leave the area, either because they can’t afford to or because of jobs or family.

* Of the 58 counties in Califrnia, 14 sent more high school graduates to college than Ventura County. Of the county’s 7,025 graduates in 1995, 55% went on to college of some kind.

* Ventura County is slightly below the statewide average in sending high school graduates to UC campuses, 6.7% compared to the statewide average of 7.6%.

* Ventura County is much below the statewide average in students attending CSU campuses out of high school, 5.3% against a statewide average of 9.2%.

* Among both recent high school graduates and community college transfers, the study found that access to four-year educational opportunities was most limited for Latino students. Because a very large proportion of the growth in these counties will be Latino, an increasing number of students will require improved access to a CSU campus.

* Ventura County has a relatively high proportion of individuals who attended college but did not persist to a degree of any kind.

* Students are making choices based on proximity and cost. This is especially true of lower income students and those who are first-generation college attendees.

* A substantial number of Ventura County students, estimated at 5%-10% of high school graduates, would make a different choice if a CSU campus were available within a reasonable community distance.

Source: Cal State University