ASU officials met with city officials in Payson on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of building a small campus in Payson’s rural setting.

The meeting was an opportunity to lay out a roadmap for both the city of Payson and ASU, in order to decide what both parties will need to proceed, said Richard Stanley, ASU senior vice president and university planner.

The smaller campus would be run at lower tuition levels than existing ASU campuses and would offer a limited number of popular majors, Stanley said.

“The idea is to give Arizona families and students more options as to how to work toward getting a bachelor’s degree in terms of both cost as well as location,” he said.

The idea for these smaller satellite campuses is fairly new, Stanley said, but ASU is considering many locations both within the Phoenix metropolitan area and around the state.

“Right now, the only choices are relatively large research colleges with similar tuitions,” Stanley said, adding that the smaller campus will give students the choice of a different environment and a less-expensive education.

Payson Mayor Kenny Evans said the campus will create an opportunity to focus on sustainability, giving students a chance to get out of the ‘concrete jungle’ and attend college in a rural setting.

“I guess the farmer in me tells me it’s a little hard to maintain credibility when you’re teaching people to lower their carbon footprint and you’re doing it in a building that is consuming a megawatt of power by running the air conditioner alone,” Evans said.

Having a campus in a rural setting can increase understanding of sustainability in a way a classroom in an urban area cannot, said Auriane Koster, a graduate teaching assistant in the Global Institute of Sustainability.

“A more rural setting can be ideal for not only sustainability students but also students studying other areas with a more rural focus,” Koster said.

Currently, Evans has secured more than $70 million in pledges for the campus and a 300-acre site to build, he said.

The tuition level at these campuses will be kept at about the same level as a Pell Grant, Stanley said.

Tuition at that level plus an equal amount of state funding will enable ASU to run these institutions as long as they remain heavily focused on a limited number of degree programs, he said.

However, in order to get the first new facility under construction, which Stanley hopes will happen by fall 2011, ASU will need help from partners to cover the capital costs associated with the building and opening of the campuses, and the intent is to have start-up costs funded from outside ASU.

“This is why we are asking the municipalities for help with that … the initial capital is not coming form ASU, it’s coming from partners,” Stanley said.

Once open, the campuses should be self-sustaining and should not require additional funds from ASU’s four main campuses, he said.

“The overall notion of these colleges being available throughout the state … is a very interesting idea and one that has a lot of potential for expanding the opportunities for education,” Stanley said.

Reach the reporter at anatwood@asu.edu.