CSU, students need help

California is taking a major initiative to ensure that students have a chance to go to college. Modifications to Cal Grants would give students with financial need and good grades a chance to pay for college.

Senate Bill 1788, co-sponsored by state Sens. John Burton, Deborah Ortiz, Charles Poochigian and John Vasconcellos, and Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, would reduce the burden of an expensive education for many students, especially those from low-income families.

This may be the most progressive bill to emerge from Sacramento, and if successful, would be the best thing to happen to higher education in California since Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown's expansion of the two state university systems. State elected officials deserve high praise for improving the avenues to education.

Nevertheless, this plan still has a major problem: where will all the students go?

Many prospective students would jump at the chance for free state aid, but campuses in the University of California and California State University systems are crowded enough as it is. Tidal Wave II, the expected surge in enrollment of baby-boomer children, will likely put a strain on campuses itself. The Cal Grant students will just add to the crush.

Cal State Long Beach has 31,000 students. If full classes and congested parking lots are a problem now, the 2001 academic year -- when the financial aid program becomes available -- will be total chaos.

The financial aid program alone is expected to cost $1 billion, but it will take billions more just to find a place for all these students.

Campuses will need to grow. More classrooms, more dorms, more parking spaces and larger libraries will be necessary.

Both the UC and CSU systems will also need more campuses. So far, UC Merced in the Central Valley and CSU Channel Islands in Ventura County look like the only campuses planned for both systems in the near future.

Finding a good location is tough, since plopping a university campus down in a major metropolitan area would be a fiscal and political powder keg, and building a school in the boonies might not attract students.

More faculties and other non-teaching positions will also be necessary to keep universities running. Finding qualified employees is tough because the state's high cost of living makes relocation a horrendously expensive endeavor.

Some stopgap measures exist. The UC and CSU systems can offer more satellite classes, which can be taught virtually anywhere and only require small rents rather than a huge outlay for an entire campus. Also, with the Internet widely available, more general education classes should be offered online.

Community colleges must also play a key role.

Investing in California's educational infrastructure is just as important as investing in its students. Otherwise, giving students a scholarship is useless if he or she has to be turned away because there is no room.