California's public colleges and universities will face enrollment demand of nearly 400,000 more students by the end of this decade and will need another $1.5 billion in operating revenue to handle the growth, a new report from the California Postsecondary Education Commission estimates.
"If this additional funding is not forthcoming, and if the systems implement enrollment cuts as they propose, as many as 278,000 students might lose the opportunity to attend college between 2009 and 2011 alone," says the report's cover letter.
The state's community colleges and state universities and the University of California now handle some 2.36 million undergraduate students and demand is expected to increase to 2.75 million by 2019, the report said.
It was presented to a commission meeting today in the midst of political angst in the Capitol over a deficit-riddled state budget and student protests against sharp increases in student fees. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a constitutional amendment aimed at reversing the current proportion of state spending devoted to colleges and prisons. The ratio is now about 7 percent for colleges and 10 percent for prisons.
The commission's forecast did not include costs of building classrooms and other physical facilities, which would add more billions to the cost of handling the projected student load. The full report, entitled "Ready or Not, Here They Come," is available here.
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