Prescott Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\nHaeger said he hopes the branch campuses grow into regional universities. They will be less expensive because they would not have a research component, athletics or residence halls. Food service would be outsourced to local communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese will be mission-focused campuses with structured academic programs,\u201d he explained. \u201cA student will be able to move through a degree in three years. We partner with the local community so it becomes an economic opportunity for the entire area, and without state funding we are counting on the local community to help us build the institution over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
ASU and the University of Arizona also presented their plans for increasing the number of baccalaureate degrees at a lower cost. The plans are part of ABOR\u2019s Vision 2020 mission to double the number of baccalaureate degrees within 10 years to ensure the state\u2019s national competitiveness.<\/p>\n
Brewer challenged the universities to develop the models quickly and without state help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be aggressive in implementing these models and not move at the normal university or governmental pace,\u201d the governor said. \u201cI know they require funding, and I wish it could be provided. But the need for cost-effective degrees has never been greater.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brewer told the regents that her latest budget protects education, which includes preserving the Maintenance of Effort requirements needed for federal stimulus funding.<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s universities reached the highest student enrollment in history, with more than 130,000 students attending one of the state\u2019s three public institutions. They also saw the largest percent increase of student enrollment, with NAU leading the way at 7.4 percent, ASU at 4.7 percent and the UA at 3.6 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI applaud the universities for their enrollment growth,\u201d said ABOR President\u00a0Ernest Calder\u00f3n<\/strong>. \u201cThat 7 percent increase (for NAU) is a miracle when compared to where we were six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\nNearly three-quarters of students in the system are Arizona residents. At the same time, however, Arizona ranks 50th in the nation for the percentage of high school graduates who go into higher education: 44 percent versus the national average of 61 percent.<\/p>\n
ABOR executive director\u00a0Joel Sideman<\/strong>\u00a0announced that the board has signed an agreement with the Arizona Department of Education to track all students to learn where they are going after high school graduation. Previously, Arizona tracked only those high school students attending an Arizona public university or community college.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is no small accomplishment,\u201d said Calder\u00f3n, who thanked Arizona state Superintendent Tom Horne for his support.<\/p>\n
In addition to greatly expanding information about Arizona\u2019s college-going trends, the data also will provide insight into the state\u2019s college preparedness efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite ever-increasing enrollments, Arizona\u2019s universities have been challenged to expand higher education\u2019s offerings to more individuals in less-costly and more sustainable manners. At the same time, the university system is trying to accomplish this goal with less state support in a bad economy. \u201cBy 2020, most of Northern Arizona University\u2019s growth will be in high-access,…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}