[ Golden Gater Online - December 11, 1997 ]
Sharon Lerman Staff writer
A rising tide of enrollment at the California State University marks the beginning of a wave of students expected to hit the system during the next decade, officials say.
In the past three years, enrollment figures have been creeping steadily upward, including this year's 2 percent increase which was recently reported by the CSU. While the figure seems modest, it has pushed the system to the highest enrollment level in five years.
According to Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of CSU public affairs, there are many reasons for the growth. One is an increase in high school students who take college-preparatory courses, completing their university entrance requirements without attending community college. Another is students in their 20s and beyond who are returning to college, perhaps to train for a second career. But the main increase will come from a half-million California high school students who are expected to reach college age by the year 2005, a phenomenon known as Tidal Wave II.
"It's starting now, but we're going to see the bigger bulge in 2004 and 2005," Bentley-Adler said. "We're starting to see it appear at all the campuses."
The first tidal wave occurred when baby boomers came of age in the mid-1960s, and their children comprise this second wave, which will bring an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 students to CSU campuses. While the CSU met the first tidal wave with a huge expansion in programs, buildings and campuses, this time it has neither the space nor the resources to provide relief valves for the flood.
State funding is already lagging behind the system's growth rate. This year, it covers just half of the influx at 1 percent. As a result, the CSU is pressuring the legislature to loosen its purse strings.
"If the economy stays the way it is, I think we have a good chance," Bentley-Adler said. "They realize we can't accept more students without getting more funding."
As another way to keep up with mounting enrollment, Chancellor Barry Munitz advised the system in a late October statement to "continue its initiatives in ... new public and private partnerships." Currently, the CSU has struck deals to create four technology-based partnerships with major corporations, including the controversial California Education Technology Initiative, which involves Microsoft, GTE and two other private companies.
But these partnerships offer companies a new way to do business -- in addition to the products and services they provide the system, they gain the right to sell their products to hundreds of thousands of students, faculty and staff. And according to Richard West, CSU senior vice chancellor of business and finance, there just isn't much incentive for companies outside the realm of technology to fill in other gaps such as repairing existing buildings or providing library materials. "With (technology partnerships), there's a little more synergy than you'd have otherwise," he said.
West said that as a result of increasing enrollment demands and the shortage in state funding, the CSU is looking into forming other partnerships which "usually (center) around developing unused land. "He said this type of deal could provide developers with opportunities to build a nearby mall or provide housing, but so far no such agreement is in the works.
Meanwhile, the system's 22 campuses must devise ways to accommodate incoming students with their already-strained facilities.
San Diego State University, the system's oldest and most-populated campus, is already approaching its capacity, according to campus spokesman Rick Moore.
In an effort to slow the crush of incoming students, the university has pushed forward its deadline for Fall 1998 admissions applications to Nov. 30, after "a long struggle" with the CSU for the green light to do so.
"The campus felt it needed to protect itself from a situation where it couldn't control enrollment but wasn't getting any additional resources to support it," Moore said.
Northridge has also tightened its deadlines for next fall -- it stopped accepting applications from freshmen and sophomores Nov. 30, according to its admissions office.
Humboldt State decided to switch from a semester system to trimesters,which allows for year-round classes, in part as a way to deal with Tidal Wave II.
Other campuses, such as SF State, are still in the planning stages. According to Tom LaBelle, vice president of academic affairs, administrators are currently discussing the increasing enrollment, but "no decisions have been made."
According to San Diego's Moore, the best bet for campuses is a process he calls "freeway ramp metering" -- finding ways to increase the flow of traffic in existing facilities.
One way to do this is to add classes in the summer, on Saturdays and on less-impacted weekdays such as Fridays. According to Moore, because most students work, they attempt to attend school as little as possible.
"We are packed to the gills on Tuesdays and Thursdays," but relatively empty on Fridays, he said.
Another way is to find "other ways to teach," including offering television and online courses. While the idea is generally unpopular with students and faculty, Moore said it may be inevitable.
"At a certain point, you just can't add any more."
[ Golden Gater - December 11, 1997 ]