Copyright© 2001 by School Services of California, Inc.

Volume 14                   For Publication Date: December 21, 2001             No. 26

CPEC Reports on Higher Education Facility Needs

The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) recently completed an analysis of the facility needs for the California community colleges and the California State University. The report, entitled "Regional Higher Education Enrollment Demand Study," projects the need for facilities to accommodate student enrollments using two different models. One assumes a modest increase in college attendance; the other assumes attendance rates to remain constant.

According to the CPEC study, some individual community college districts now have significant excess capacity while others already lack the facilities to serve students they now have.

One area of the state where in the near term—by the fall of 2004—demand will most dramatically outstrip available facilities at both the community college and CSU level is the San Diego-Imperial County region. By 2010, areas where demand is expected to far exceed capacity will also include the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Statewide, at the community college level, the study found that if rates remain constant there would be a facilities capacity deficit of 156,467 full-time equivalent (FTE) student slots by 2010 out of a projected demand of 1,053,624 FTE students. If college attendance rates increase, that deficit could climb to 315,058 slots out of a projected demand of 1,212,215 students.

The aim of the report was to highlight regional differences. The study breaks the state down into 11 regions and compares projected enrollment demand against current physical capacity. On that basis, the following is the projected 2010 facilities deficit in terms of community college FTES, by region: Northern California, 1,866; Sacramento area, 14,627; San Francisco Bay area, 24,189; North Central Valley, 10,546; South Central Valley, 5,927; Central Coast, 2,186; South Central Coast, 17,547; Los Angeles County, 34,795; Orange County, 11,993; San Bernardino-Riverside, 19,500; and San Diego-Imperial County, 13,291.

The study didn’t attempt to break down projected deficits for each community college district. But it did present a rundown of actual capacity and enrollment data for each district for the 1998-99 academic year. The breakdown, the study notes, reveals that some districts have significant excess enrollment capacity, while other districts have tremendous need for additional classroom and laboratory space.

The CPEC staff analysis noted, "there will always be a degree of mismatch between population density and the availability of learning facilities." But is suggests there are at least two planning measures that can be taken to lessen the degree of mismatches.

First, is the need to prevent so-called end-runs in the community college system, wherein some districts prevail upon their local legislators to circumvent the Community College Chancellor’s Office and attempt to secure funding ahead of priority projects. (Note: this is not a significant problem as the CPEC study alludes—in fact, not one district capital outlay project was approved in the 2001-02 budget ahead of the system’s priorities.)

Second, district-wide regional planning teams should be formed and encouraged to work closely with CPEC and the demographic research unit of the Department of Finance to ensure that capital resource planning is based on the most comprehensive set of relevant data available.

The CPEC study notes that the community colleges and CSU have in place a five-year capital improvement plan to meet some of this need, but both fall short of meeting the demand expected over the next 10 years. Increased use of year-round operations, weekend classes and distance learning will be needed to cope with projected enrollments. And the CPEC data suggests some pressure could begin to ease in 2007-08 when high school graduation rates should begin to peak in many regions.

The CPEC study can be reviewed in detail by logging into the CPEC website: www.cpec.ca.gov (December 3 meeting agenda).