As rising numbers of incoming freshmen and transfer students find it harder to get into Washington’s traditional four-year universities, more are staying closer to home to earn their bachelor’s degrees.
For many it’s as close to home as their local community college campus.
From Bothell to Spokane and Lynnwood to Yakima, branch campuses and university centers – satellite programs offering junior- and senior-year level courses – are gaining a firmer foothold in many communities across Washington.
“They are going to play a pivotal role in this state,” said Jim Sulton, executive director of the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Central Washington University’s student head count increased from 393 in 2003 to 515 this year at its Lynnwood center on the Edmonds Community College campus.
“We are so overloaded here (in Lynnwood),” said Margaret Badgley, a CWU assistant to the provost who oversees six centers across the state. “We have to very carefully look at how we schedule classes.”
As are many states, Washington is bracing for an unprecedented enrollment crunch over the next decade.
Tuition costs are rising and the state is challenged to sustain – much less expand – the funding needed to meet the growing demand and maintain quality.
The problem is a combination of “the baby boom echo” – which is expected to peak with a record number of high school graduates in 2010 – and the state’s predicted $1 billion shortfall.
Washington’s community colleges and universities are already “overenrolled” by 18,000 students, meaning they serve 18,000 more students than the state funds. Most of that total – about 14,000 students – are in the state’s 34 community and technical colleges.
“Eventually,” said Kris Betker, a spokeswoman for the states Higher Education Coordinating Board, “they might have to look at their open-door policy.”
The state Board of Community and Technical Colleges predicts there will be 5,200 more students a year with transfer degrees from community colleges wanting to get into four-year universities by 2012. About 14,000 students transfer from two-year colleges each year. Transfer students earn 41 percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded, up from 32 percent in 1988.
More space will be needed at the state’s four-year public universities to meet the transfer needs, the state board concluded.
While branch campuses and education centers will help, they are by no means the whole answer. They are limited in the degree programs they can offer.
CWU’s Lynnwood campus, for example, offers degrees in accounting, business administration, general studies, law and justice and safety and health management.
Everett Community College hopes to build an undergraduate center by 2009 and expand its relationship with Western Washington University. WWU enrolls the equivalent of about 300 full-time students pursuing elementary education and human services.
As promising as satellite centers may be, they will only be part of what needs to be a multi-pronged effort to accommodate the rising tide of students, said Sulton, the executive director of the Higher Education Coordinating Board.
It must include universities finding ways to get students through school quicker and better counseling and academic preparation years before students enter college. More money to expand faculties will also be needed.
In the meantime, branch campuses and satellite centers will need to trumpet their existence as a viable option.
Theresa Gabelein, 35, a Silver Lake resident, is a working single mom and a senior at CWU-Lynnwood where she is majoring in business administration.
Gabelein didn’t have the luxury of being able to pick up and move to Ellensburg or other college towns to get her bachelor’s degree.
When she enrolled at EdCC in 2000, she was just looking for an associate’s degree and didn’t even know about the CWU degree program at the Lynnwood campus.
“I never would have thought coming out of high school that you would think of a satellite campus as going to college,” she said. “But a lot of my classmates are in their early 20s.”
Eric Stevick is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
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