Is Bend Ready for a 4 Year College Campus in Town?

[redguard57]

Central Oregon is one of the few metros of its size in the USA that does *not* have a 4 year university. I think it needs one.

I work at COCC and have been in the higher education business for the better part of a decade. Working there gives me a little more insight into the Cascades project.

I worked at one university and two other community colleges in the past, so I know about college towns. With a ratio of 1 student to every 16 residents, Bend will not be a "college town." It will be a town with a low-medium sized college in it. The ration won't even be that bad, because with the way Bend's grown - about 4-6K added residents since 2010, the town should be around 90,000 or more in 2025. People are comparing it Eugene or Corvallis, which has 1 student for every 5 or 6 residents

The Cascades campus will not bring that many jobs. OSU is running this project frugally. In my opinion, they are not investing the resources necessary to create a dynamic campus. They will have a couple dozen academic programs, but only a handful that are serious. They will run everything else with part-time faculty. 500 jobs sounds about right - but 400 or so of those will be part-time. Seeing how they run things, they will probably try to run with as much part-time staff and maintenance support as possible, which is really frugal. The only advantage to all that is that these public jobs do come with health insurance even when they're part-time.

There won't be a football team nor a serious basketball team. That will significantly cut reduce the "college town" atmosphere which generally revolves around division I sports. Colleges with only a small NCAA footprint do not bring in the kind of party atmosphere residents fear.

The minimal investment means Cascades will not be a serious university. "Real" university faculty need support - labs, grants, etc... and they will need to pay people real money to get them to move to Bend - which doesn't have the kinds of resources researchers need to attract them without high pay.

As for small businesses, it'll help the coffee shops and maybe support another few nightlife spots downtown. Bend already has some nightlife downtown, the campus will just increase it somewhat.

If you live in an apartment complex like I do - you already deal with young people having parties because they can't afford the breweries and the stoned ski bums that already exist here like someone said.

It'll also help develop people like management professionals for the recreation sector.

Like I said before, except for some increased traffic on SW 14th & Century Dr. and parking problems in that area - I think the campus will have a neutral effect on Bend.

[kapetrich]

Originally Posted by redguard57

I worked at one university and two other community colleges in the past, so I know about college towns. With a ratio of 1 student to every 16 residents, Bend will not be a "college town." It will be a town with a low-medium sized college in it. The ration won't even be that bad, because with the way Bend's grown - about 4-6K added residents since 2010, the town should be around 90,000 or more in 2025. People are comparing it Eugene or Corvallis, which has 1 student for every 5 or 6 residents

The Cascades campus will not bring that many jobs. OSU is running this project frugally. In my opinion, they are not investing the resources necessary to create a dynamic campus. They will have a couple dozen academic programs, but only a handful that are serious. They will run everything else with part-time faculty. 500 jobs sounds about right - but 400 or so of those will be part-time. Seeing how they run things, they will probably try to run with as much part-time staff and maintenance support as possible, which is really frugal. The only advantage to all that is that these public jobs do come with health insurance even when they're part-time.

There won't be a football team nor a serious basketball team. That will significantly cut reduce the "college town" atmosphere which generally revolves around division I sports. Colleges with only a small NCAA footprint do not bring in the kind of party atmosphere residents fear.

The minimal investment means Cascades will not be a serious university. "Real" university faculty need support - labs, grants, etc... and they will need to pay people real money to get them to move to Bend - which doesn't have the kinds of resources researchers need to attract them without high pay.

As for small businesses, it'll help the coffee shops and maybe support another few nightlife spots downtown. Bend already has some nightlife downtown, the campus will just increase it somewhat.

If you live in an apartment complex like I do - you already deal with young people having parties because they can't afford the breweries and the stoned ski bums that already exist here like someone said.

It'll also help develop people like management professionals for the recreation sector.

Like I said before, except for some increased traffic on SW 14th & Century Dr. and parking problems in that area - I think the campus will have a neutral effect on Bend.

I agree with pretty much everything here. To say Bend will turn into a 'college town' as most people 'define' them is a stretch. Most towns that are considered college towns have over 50% of their population, in many cases more, as enrolled college kids.

OSU Cascades plans on having 5,000 students by 2025. Take that number and divide it by ~90k residents (estimate). They'll make up ~6% of our population.

And to anyone that wants to define COCC as a 'true' college. COCC has 11,000 students even though many are part time/older students/further learning (like myself). Then add in the 5,000 in 2025 at Oregon State and lets throw in a very generous 2,000 faculty members associated with both schools. That's 18,000 people associated with both school divided by ~90k residents. That's 20% of the population.

Take Blacksburg, VA for example as I know that 'college town' best. Blacksburg has Virginia Tech in it. An actual flagship University with 31,000 students and at least 5,000 workers of the school in a town of 42,000 residents. That's over 70% people directly associated with the University which absolutely takes over the town much like Eugene/Corvallis.

On top of this, as redguard57 points out from experience, the school is not a flagship university. It is OSU ______ Cascades. It will not have the same sports teams, money, student population etc. that most everyone associates with the Eugenes, Boulders, State Colleges, Blacksburgs of this world. It's just a totally different experience. An experience that absolutely dominates the town with their sports teams and population.

Unless Bend gets OSU or UofO to fully move their flagship schools to Bend then by 2025 Bend will be a town that has A college and a half in it.

I get peoples concern - I have my own, I actually choose Bend over a few other like-town because it wasn't a college town - but lets not blow all of this too much out of proportion.

[BendLocal]

If you put 5000 college kids close to the center of town they will have a huge impact - so much so that Bend will feel like a college town. And what assurances do we have that it will only be 5000 students? The OSU president has said he hopes to see 8,000 to 10,000 students at a Bend OSU.

I don't think OSU will have any problem recruiting students to Bend. My guess is that it will be their fastest growing campus.

[kapetrich]

Originally Posted by BendLocal

If you put 5000 college kids close to the center of town they will have a huge impact - so much so that Bend will feel like a college town. And what assurances do we have that it will only be 5000 students? The OSU president has said he hopes to see 8,000 to 10,000 students at a Bend OSU

We don't have any assurance, but should we?

The public plans goal is 5,000 students by 2025. In 2025 Bend could have up to 85-95 thousand residents.

It's a little speculative to me. Who knows when the campus would want to expand to 8-10k students. When/if this were to happen we have no idea how large Bend would have grown by this unspecified future none-date date. Proportionality matters.

[BendLocal]

The number of Bend residents isn't even relevant.

We absolutely need assurances on the number of students for an area that is already congested and can't handle 5,000 students!

[redguard57]

Bendlocal,

I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. COCC serves more than 5000 students at its Bend campus, and that doesn't seem to make too many problems.

I've spent a good amount of time in towns like this that "have a branch college in it." I'm from Texas so what comes to mind for me are Kingsville, TX, Georgetown, TX; Nacogdoches, TX. In 2 of those cases, the colleges were bigger than what OSU plans, and the towns were a good 20-30% smaller than Bend and the college footprints were not that bad.

When I think of "real" college towns, what comes to mind are places where the town is dominated by the college in its identity and dependent on it economically. For me, this brings up thoughts of places like: Iowa City, IA, Columbia, MO, Hanover, NH, Ithaca, NY, College Station, TX, Fayetteville, AR, Storrs, CT.

Without high profile football or basketball teams, you avoid most of the worst of what college-aged kids do.

For us in this region - a place that's somewhat similar might be Bozeman, MT - it's got the same kind of semi-urban, but rural & isolated at the same time vibe. Lots of outdoors activities. MSU has 15000 students, and Bozeman, with about 40,000 residents, seems to handle it fine. It's not dominated by its college.

What is it, do you think, that will hurt Bend, even if OSU grows to above 5000?

[BendLocal]

Originally Posted by redguard57

I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. COCC serves more than 5000 students at its Bend campus, and that doesn't seem to make too many problems.

How many students aged 17-23 are on campus each day? How many COCC students are part-time students over the age of 23?

Originally Posted by redguard57

What is it, do you think, that will hurt Bend, even if OSU grows to above 5000?

The location is the problem. There isn't room for 5,000 - 10,000 full-time college students at the proposed westside location without causing massive traffic and parking congestion in the surrounding areas. Someone else mentioned that because OSU is using a staged development process they are avoiding the mitigation costs which will be absorbed by Bend taxpayers in the future. There are also the costs of dealing with the pumice pit and toxic landfill as OSU expands. Taxpayers will probably end up with that bill too.

There are better locations!

[redguard57]

OK I see what you mean. COCC's average student age is 29, so the 17-23 yr olds are maybe 25% of the student body.

Yeah, OSU will probably bring a couple thousand of 17-23 yr olds in, although I think you'll see it with a higher than normal student age average.

I agree on the site - it's not big enough and is kind of awkward even for what they're planning, and it will exaggerate the east vs. west divide.

Although... idk, the Cascades project is just a$$-backwards in a lot of ways. I'm not going to worry about it until I see them actually break ground. So far I just hear a lot of talk, backed up by paltry amounts of money.