Smart Money for CSUN

Plans to develop Cal State Northridge’s North Campus got a big boost earlier this month when a biotech company agreed to build a research and office park on the land. The project is just the kind of smart development cash-strapped public colleges and universities ought to encourage to close holes in their budgets and expose students to the real-world applications of classroom lessons. Responsibility now lies with administrators from CSUN and the Cal State system to move quickly--but carefully--to turn the plans into reality.

Debate over what to do with the North Campus roiled the neighborhood around CSUN last year, particularly after school administrators tried to push through a proposal to develop the site with a retail shopping center. Neighbors and local merchants rightly complained that a shopping center would be an inappropriate use of school property--despite the cash flow it would have provided the university. After scaling back the project, CSUN dropped the plans altogether to pursue a development plan that met the school’s academic as well as financial needs.

The biotech complex proposed by Sylmar businessman Alfred Mann is the first part of that plan to fall into place. Roughly half of the 65-acre North Campus is slated for a complex to include office, research and manufacturing facilities that generate as much as $800,000 each year for the university. Plus CSUN students will be eligible for internships and work-study jobs as well as the opportunity to compete for permanent positions after graduation. In the coming months, CSUN administrators hope to lure entertainment and high-tech firms to North Campus as well to create a training center for the jobs of the next century.

First, though, they must work with Cal State officials to draft various legal agreements allowing the university to lease public land to private companies. Bureaucratic delays should not stand in the way of a project that promises to be a model for development throughout public education in California.

From community colleges to the University of California, public schools are being asked to do more with less. Their choice: Cut programs or find new ways to pay for them. Obviously the latter course makes the most long-term sense. Like CSUN, many campuses have available land that can be used for lucrative private development. But that development must always relate to the mission of public education. Yes, a shopping mall or private apartment complex can provide a comfortable cash flow for schools to spend on everything from extra classes to building repair. Yet is that the best use for public land dedicated to education? As CSUN has shown, lucrative development can dovetail with educational responsibility.

It takes a little work, but the payoff is substantial.