11/24/2008

Educational Planning

Looking for your input!
To guide our facilities planning, primarily for the Fremont Campus, we need to take a look at our assumptions about enrollment growth for the District by programs and by locations over the next ten years. The purpose of this blog post is to solicit feedback on a set of proposed assumptions about enrollment growth from now through 2018. This beginning set of assumptions has been created by the VP of Academic Affairs as a starting point for dialogue.

The first general assumption is the average annual growth rate over the next ten years will be 1.5%.
The Educational Master Plan for the Newark Center was updated and approved by the Board on December 10, 2003. This Educational Master Plan contained a rational for a projected 15-year (2003-2018) annual growth rate of 1.5% for the District. This planning document can be accessed on the Academic Affairs website under Educational Master Planning: http://www.ohlone.edu/org/academicaffairs
See Pages 5-9 for enrollment projections.
Further, according to calculations by Ron Travenick, the average annual growth rate for Ohlone has been approximately 1.5% since the college opened in 1967.

The following are offered as general assumptions about the average growth in academic programs over the 10-year period:
English and math with grow at 1.75%
Chemistry and Biology with grow at 1.5%
ESL will grow at 1.25%
“Bread and butter” freshman level GE will grow at 1% (History, Sociology, Speech, Art, Music, etc….)
Heath Science will stay steady
All other areas will grow an average of .75%

The following are offered as general assumptions about enrollment growth by locations:
Fremont: FTES will remain steady at slightly over 5000 FTES, but percent of total District enrollment will drop from the current 62% to 53.5%
Newark: Percent of total District enrollment will grow from the current 18% to 20%
Online: Percent of total District will grow from the current 12% to 20%
HS Dual Enrollment, PS Consortium and Other Off-Campus: FTES will remain steady and percent of total District enrollment will drop slightly.

Finally, here is an interesting strategic question to consider:
Is there an enrollment level at which Ohlone would be considered to be at the “right-size,” beyond which growth would be minimal? Given the current demographics and population density and growth projections, is it reasonable to assume that Ohlone should ever be a 10,000 FTES college? Or 12,000?
Or more?

Please weigh in with your reactions to any or all of these assumptions by posting a comment to this blog. Come back from time to time to check the dialogue.