A jump in the number of Hispanics and a rapidly increasing college-age population in Arizona will create challenges for ASU as we advance into the next decade, according to a new report.
In March, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, or WICHE, projected that, while fewer high-school graduates will be produced in Northern and Midwestern states, the number of high-school graduates in Arizona will increase exponentially through the 2020s.
"Arizona has, for a number of years, been dealing with capacity issues," said Brian Prescott, WICHE senior research analyst. "Arizona has got some of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country."
Maricopa County led the nation's counties in the number of new residents from 2000 to 2007, with more than 800,000 new residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Mimicking the high-school graduation trends, university enrollment is expected to slow for many national institutions in the mid-2010s, but Arizona's growth — spurred partly by migration into the state and partly by natural population increase, like high projected birth rates — will lead to a large influx of students into local universities, Prescott said.
ASU has already grown from an enrollment of about 50,000 students in 2000 to more than 63,000 in 2006 and is expected to exceed 100,000 by 2020, according to ASU figures.
The challenge of keeping up with such expansive increases is preparedness, said Richard Stanley, ASU senior vice president and university planner.
"We have been in a planning mode to be able to accommodate the growth," Stanley said.
ASU is prepared to cap enrollment at the Tempe campus at about 55,000 and expand only at the other campuses, he said. And, apart from building more and larger facilities, he said more faculty hires will be needed.
But all this takes money, and with a projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall in 2009, legislative funding may not always be there, said ASU education professor Arnold Danzig.
"Arizona tends to be at the bottom of funding for public education across the country," he said.
Danzig said that, for Arizona universities to grow healthily, taxpayers will need to make larger contributions to public education.
"We need to invest in public education," he said. "Keeping up the education infrastructure to meet demands of the growing population is the biggest challenge."
Building maintenance is a critical cost that the Arizona Legislature should be picking up, Stanley said. Currently, that cost comes from tuition.
"We need the Legislature to continue to provide enrollment growth funding," he said.
Another revelation of the WICHE report is that, while 30 percent of Arizona high-school graduates were Hispanic in 2004-05, that figure is expected to jump to 40 percent by 2015.
"[ASU] has to start thinking about how are they going to more efficiently recruit and enroll a different looking student body than they have in the past," said Prescott, the research analyst.
White, non-Hispanic students received 66 percent of ASU degrees awarded in 2005-06 compared to only 10 percent received by Hispanics, according to ASU documents. Prescott said ASU must start accommodating for the demographic shift.
"How are you going to reach and educate all these people at a post-secondary level?" he said. "That's a real challenge."
At a glance...
While some states will see a drop in college enrollment in coming years, Arizona's universities are expected to keep growing. According to a new report, high-school graduation numbers will peak in the Northeast and Midwest this year, then decrease 13 percent and 7 percent, respectively, through 2021. In the West, however, numbers are expected to climb 5 percent.
Along with that growth come challenges for ASU, such as hiring additional faculty,
building new facilities and securing more state funding. A larger Hispanic
population is expected as well. In order to increase the number of Hispanic hig-school graduates that come to ASU, the University will need adjust its
recruitment and enrollment practices.
Reach the reporter at: daniel.newhauser@asu.edu.
