That represents annual growth of 1.1 percent over the next 10 years, the most modest rate of any of the campuses. California's student-age population is growing. Meeting the challenge at Berkeley and across the system will, of course, require a sustained commitment of resources. The university will need to hire approximately 3,000 new faculty members for enrollment growth alone. Student services will likewise require expansion.
Degree dreams Add to population trends the growing value placed on the college degree.
National college-going rates show 65 percent of recent high school graduates enroll in college the next fall. Maybe it started with the G.I. Bill after World War II, boosting college education by underwriting costs. The increase in financial aid grants and loans that became available in the '60s and '70s is another ingredient. Although the U.S. population only doubled since 1930, higher education enrollment increased seven times, according to the Commission on National Investment in Higher Education. A 1996 report by the Hudson Institute Policy Research Center in Indianapolis traced higher education enrollment from 1.5 million students in 1,700 institutions after WWII to 3.6 million students in 2,000 colleges and universities 20 years later.