S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. It's been in talks for years. Finally , a long awaited update on plans for a South Bay University. This is KPBS Midday Edition connecting our communities through conversation. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition , I'm Jade Hindman. Chula Vista is dream for a public university may finally be coming into focus. After decades of planning and setbacks , South Bay officials are laying the groundwork for something that would be the first of its kind in California , a hybrid campus that houses degree programs from multiple universities across San Diego County. South Bay reporter Corey Suzuki has more.
S2: If you go out to the eastern edge of Chula Vista , you can see this wide expanse of empty land that stretches from the neighborhood towards the Lower Otay Reservoir. It's quiet. Flocks of crows float on the breeze. If you stray in for it , you can hear the rumble of a distant freeway. For three decades , South Bay officials and state lawmakers have been searching for a ways to bring a university here to this swath of land.
S3: We have a college desert where opportunities are not being provided to families and students.
S2: David Alvarez is a state assembly member for the South Bay. He says higher education opportunities haven't been equally distributed here. Most major cities in California are already home to public four year universities , with more than 270,000 people. Chula Vista is a major city. It's a majority Latino town , home to many first generation college students and one that's at the heart of the San Diego Tijuana binational region. But if students here want to earn a bachelor's degree , they have to leave town.
S3: It's an investment that's going to really pay a lot of dividends , because we're going to be able to have access to education for our families. And then secondarily , we'll create economic activity.
S2: At first , the goal was to become part of the UCR CSU system. At one point , Chula Vista was on the short list to become the location for a brand new CSU campus. But in 2020 , the CSU system said they couldn't justify the cost of a new school.
S4: Our key finding is that the projected 2035 enrollment demand alone does not justify the development of a new campus at any of the five evaluated locations.
S2: That has led officials to focus on a different idea a multi university campus that houses academic programs from other universities and community colleges across the San Diego Tijuana metro. Alvarez again.
S3: You've all been to UC San Diego , or you've been to San Diego State University or any other number of universities throughout the country or the world. And they're very typical , right ? It's the one campus. Everybody's the same. But there are other states where they are. They are doing this where you have multiple Institutions on the same campus.
S2: The idea is based on similar campuses across the country. Chula Vista officials are looking at one example in particular , the Auraria Campus in Denver , Colorado.
S5: As we were originally envisioned , it was supposed to be a pipeline from one school to the next for students.
S2: Skip Speer is Aurora's chief administrative officer. He says the campus houses the local city college and two separate universities , Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Denver. Speer says the idea behind it was to make it easier for students to move between the college and university systems. He says having all three institutions in the same place also allows them to lower costs by combining resources.
S5: You know , a lot of community colleges in Colorado consist of 1 or 2 buildings. Here , you're getting access to 150 acres , all the buildings on campus , a much larger bookstore than you usually have access to , as well as different food options.
S2: There is a key difference between the Auraria Campus and the one envisioned here in Chula Vista. Instead of being a primary home , Chula Vista campus would function more like a satellite for the other universities. To be clear , a physical university campus in San Diego County's second largest city is still years away at the earliest. But there is a sense that this new vision is more realistic than previous plans.
S6: All members vote who desire to vote.
S2: One reason for this optimism is that the state legislature passed a bill earlier this year , creating a task force to explore funding for the physical campus.
S6: Kirk will close the roll. Tally the votes. Ayes 67 , noes zero. Measure passes.
S2: Also , the academic infrastructure is already being built. Sdsu , UCSD and CSU San Marcos have each announced plans to begin offering degrees in Chula Vista , and they'll be in industries that are prominent in the South Bay , like nursing , public health , business and cybersecurity. Alvarez says that's the plan for the university to focus more narrowly on degrees that would serve major industries in the South Bay , like health care and binational trade.
S3: We need to offer an education that actually gets people a job , not just gets them a B.A. , a certificate , or a degree , but gets them into into the workforce.
S2: For many South Bay students , the idea of having a local university is still pretty hazy. On a recent afternoon at Southwestern College , many students told KPBS they had never heard about the project. But the ones you have are excited. Jazmin Araujo is a first year biology student at southwestern. She loves the idea of having a university campus closer to home.
S7: Southwestern is like a really good like. We have our own nursing program and there's a lot to offer here compared to like , other community colleges. And like a lot of them are like much smaller than this campus. So I think it's really good that want to expand more.
S2: Araujo says she's proud of what Chula Vista has to offer already , but she says it's exciting to think of something new.
S1: Well , Corey , great story there. So this effort has been going on for 30 years. That's a long time.
S2: And I mean , I think one of the really big reasons that this effort has been so long running is that universities are really expensive public campuses. and we're talking about huge undertakings. The last public university that California opened was UC Merced , which was in 2004. So that's more than 20 years ago at this point. And in the 2020 meeting that we referenced in that story , the CSU system estimated that a new campus for that university system would cost between 1.9 and $2.9 billion to stand up. And the CSU system , the consultants they hired to sort of study what it would take to build out a new campus said that it would it would really take more than 7000 full time students who would be enrolled in paying tuition in that one place in the area where the campus would be , to justify the cost of building out something new like that. So in a lot of cases , it's if there's an increased in enrollment demand , it's much cheaper to expand an existing campus than build a new one.
S1:
S2: And I think that also there's a lot about higher education that's uncertain right now. In a lot of cases , it's a fragile time for California's public universities. We're seeing attacks on diversity , equity and inclusion efforts , federal investigations into the UC and CSU systems , and a lot of people. Also , I think there's this growing sense that or a growing question about how much a bachelor's degree , um , is really worth for , for people in terms of the time and the money and what it means in terms of being able to , um , to have a job , that means that you can afford to , to , to live. And , um , I think what , uh , the proponents of this university project , like David Alvarez would say , is that San Diego universities. Um , like , like Alvarez mentioned , are seeing strong enrollment , uh , when it comes to other universities in California. Um , and this new model , this kind of idea of a hybrid campus is really what I think these supporters of this project say could make the difference when it comes to , uh , having this this vision as an aspiration and bringing taking that from just a dream to to making it reality.
S8: What do they anticipate this.
S1:
S2: I mean , first , you know , we as you heard , David Alvarez and other supporters of this project see it as expanding educational opportunities in the region for students , many of them first generation. But I think a lot of people are really also looking at this as an economic driver. There's always for a lot of South Bay officials. There's a sense that this part of San Diego County is , is a place where people have to leave town to , to , to get to work , that these are commuter towns that , um , that they are looking for ways to to enable more people to live and work in South Bay , in Chula Vista and in other cities in in South San Diego County. We see that with projects like the new Bayfront Casino. That was a really big part of part of that effort was the promise that this would this this resort would provide all of these new jobs and let people stay closer to home. And so I think that's a really big part of the push behind this university , too , is the idea that both the university itself and also the skills , the workforce skills , the professional skills that it might offer students would give people more of an opportunity to stay and live and work closer to home.
S1: So after earlier efforts to make this site the future home of its own UC or CSU University , now the focus is on making it a multi university campus. Tell us more about that vision. Right.
S2: Right. So as we heard , this is based on a model in Colorado. Other places across the country. And the idea is really here that when you have multiple universities on the same campus , you have these programs are able to share the same infrastructure. So they're able to cut down costs. You aren't having to build out the same kind of distinct libraries. For example , for each separate university you have can maybe have one centralized library that all of the universities and all of the students can share. And then the idea is also that the systems will be able to work in tandem and offer these pathways for students to travel between them and to maybe , you know , be starting at City College and then make it easier for them to transfer to looking at a bachelor's degree and then even beyond to a graduate program. And the one of the unique things about what officials are looking at with Chula Vista is that they hope to include Sweetwater Union High School to the Sweetwater Union High School District. So they're really hoping to to look , um , both towards , uh , towards , towards long term higher education , but also to , to students who are even at a younger age and try and draw those connections there , create , create on ramps and really just sort of form new connections between these different education systems.
S8: Yeah , create those inroads.
S1: You mentioned how the focus of the university would be on jobs that are needed in San Diego , South Bay.
S2: UCSD has announced that for beginning in 2026 , Sdsu has announced that they're planning on bringing their nursing program to Chula Vista. It'll be run out of the Millennia library in East Chula Vista. That'll start in 2022. San Marcos has announced plans to begin Business Administration degrees , computer information systems , degrees , cybersecurity and then further down the road , human development , with an emphasis on wellness coaching and bilingual speech language pathology. Beyond that , it's still unclear. These are kind of the programs that have been announced been announced already , but Alvarez and other supporters of this effort are really looking at these degree programs as something that will really be the first steps , the groundwork of this project , where these degrees , they'll begin offering them first at places like southwestern or at this city facility , this millennial library , and then that those degrees will eventually migrate to this university once it is up and running.
S1: All right. Well , um , you know , the state legislature passed this measure to form a task force.
S2: I mean , this task force won't be up and running until next year , but we really are expecting this task force to be looking at a couple of different things. The first one is funding options , trying to figure out how this university campus might get built out , where the money might come from. And then the second one is potential legislative changes , changes to state law that might make it easier for the public university systems in California to work together , which , you know , in a place like Colorado , they have this history of doing that. The Auraria Campus is dates back to the 1970s , but in California , the CSU and the UC and the community college systems , they don't always have to have that same history of of collaborating or of working together on a level this close. So , um , that's part of what the task force is going to look at to whether or not there might be some changes to state law that would make it easier for these systems to work together.
S1:
S2: I think that's the question that a lot of people have. And I think it's a little early to say , um , I'm not sure I can answer that one , but I will say David Alvarez is hopeful that we might see construction on this campus begin maybe by 2030. So we're still talking a few years out. I mean , that's not all of all of this this this kind of vision. The the the the steps , the concrete steps. There's still definitely at least a few years away , but , um , that's the the hope that he told me was that we might be able to see shovels going into the ground by by the end of the decade.
S1: All right. I know it's something a lot of people have been looking forward to seeing actually happen. Corey Suzuki covers San Diego's South County. Corey , thank you so much.
S2: Thank you so much , Jade.
