How Big a Beach?

After reading Provost David Dowell’s thoughts on growth in his Wednesday Messages in October and November, I wanted to share my current analysis of this important issue.

How big should The Beach be? Estimates suggest we have our second highest fall enrollment—more than 37,000 students (not all full time). As part of the CSU, we have enrollment targets each year that match a “master plan maximum.” We’re just about four percent below this maximum, but feedback suggests our current size is feeling a bit crowded.

For a number of years our superb staff in admissions has managed to get within one percent of our overall enrollment goals. This past year our goal was to admit 8,400 students, and we enrolled 8,305. This is an amazing accomplishment when you consider that 84,598 undergraduates applied.

Here’s how I evaluate our situation.

• For most of the CSU’s existence, dollars followed enrollment growth, with mixed consequences. Funding has not been reliable and is based only on quantity not quality. But money has followed students, which is a good thing.
• The state has pledged small increases in our general fund over the next few years. Again, mixed. Although welcome, these increases do not bring us back to the level of appropriations prior to 2009. Small increases are much better than cuts, but at current levels general fund dollars will not support a truly distinctive education.
• If we over-enroll by taking more students than we have state dollars for, we get students’ tuition dollars, but that covers less than half the cost of educating them. Bad—because accessibility without excellence is not acceptable at The Beach.
• There are unexamined beliefs among our policy makers that on-line learning is the panacea that will solve all growth problems and that time to degree is the only metric that matters in judging success. Mixed—because e-learning does hold promise to improve our teaching and provide flexibility in scheduling and building use, but innovative e-learning is not cheap and hybrid experiences are preferred by many learners. Further, we must stay equally committed to high impact educational practices and time to degree. Our students’ financial well-being is affected by time, and it is vital to measure the quality of the learning experience.

As we envision our optimal size, here’s how I see the context of our decision-making:

• We care about educating Californians. This is who we are.
• We have numerous areas of excellence in academics, creative arts, student services, and sports that make us a university of choice.
• Our visionary faculty members have created disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas that are attracting many graduate applications and could attract more if we invest strategically in programs that provide significant return for our students.
• Non-resident students add to the diversity of our campus and contribute to our financial stability.
• Increasing the number of graduate students may be a special support for our faculty’s research, scholarly, creative and artistic work.

Improving success for underrepresented and low-income students is vital to our state and nation’s futures. Success includes high persistence rates, transformative educational experiences, and timely graduation. We are already a national leader in all these areas, but I know we’re not satisfied.

To stay accessible and excellent, The Beach must also find alternative sources of revenue. This will include philanthropic dollars (Declare Campaign!) as well as win/win partnerships with business, education, non-profit sectors, and industry, as well as creative use of our other assets. We must match any growth with improved physical facilities and student services, and more faculty and staff. We’ll also have to look at innovative scheduling and building use.

We are not wholly autonomous in this arena, but your thoughts on optimal size and composition are most welcome as I think through this fundamental question.

Go Beach!