Moorpark College May Open Conejo Valley Campus

The Conejo Valley may become the newest home for a county community college.

Hoping to offer classes in the Thousand Oaks area, Moorpark College officials are in the early planning stages of creating a satellite campus, college President Jim Walker said.

A new campus would help ease the student overcrowding that administrators are wrestling with in Moorpark, the county’s largest community college, and lure new learners to the halls of academia.

“We think there are some folks in the Conejo Valley that don’t want to drive all the way over here,” Walker said. “If we had a nice area over there, they might be more inclined to go there.”

Officials for the college and the Ventura County Community College District are working to make the plan a reality, with hopes of opening the mini-campus in fall 2000.

The first step is to scout locations that could accommodate at least 10 classrooms, Walker said. Then the district will assess the enrollment growth a Conejo Valley satellite campus could expect and decide whether such an expansion would be worth the expense.

Conejo Valley residents have long waited for affordable higher-education options in their backyard, said Norman J. Nagel, the college district trustee who represents the area.

“I think it would be marvelous,” Nagel said. “It’s very much needed because we have 115,000 people in the Conejo Valley that could benefit.”

Like many community colleges statewide, Moorpark College has watched its enrollment jump in recent years. First-day enrollment for the new semester grew 2.9% to 11,880 students last week.

Parking lots are jammed and classrooms are packed in the morning and early afternoon hours, making the need for a new campus an even more pressing concern.

“Community colleges in Ventura County are experiencing this surge,” Walker said. “People are realizing what a great bargain and deal they are.”

Oxnard College already has a storefront satellite center in Camarillo.

Walker would like to see a Moorpark campus in the Conejo Valley hold at least twice as many classrooms.

Statewide, community college officials are predicting a historic high enrollment of 1.5 million students this fall. Although a final head count is not complete, enrollment figures have more than recovered from a drop during the recession, said Kyle Orr, spokesman for the California Community College chancellor’s office.

Because there is not enough money in the system budget to build whole new community colleges, scores of two-year schools statewide are turning to satellite campuses, Orr said.

Along with a stronger economy, the vast group of baby boomers’ children beginning to enter college has also contributed to the enrollment surge.

“There is more of a demand for higher education, and the community college is the point of access,” Orr said. “We are going to absorb a lot of the increased demand.”