Cal State Long Beach will renovate Brooks College in January — two months sooner than previously planned — allowing student occupation of the future residential learning college in fall of 2009.
“We are planning on getting to work the day after we take over the campus,” said F. King Alexander, president of CSULB.
The $11.1 million purchase of the 5.04 acre property will tentatively house approximately 550 students and two or three faculty apartments. It will also provide some classrooms, computer labs, offices and a dining facility, according to Toni Beron, associate vice president of university relations and development.
“Residential learning colleges are as old as higher education,” Alexander said.
The additional beds were an important factor in the Brooks College purchase.
“When you look at a campus of our size, we don’t have adequate housing and we certainly do what we can to fill the on-campus housing,” said Douglas Robinson, vice president of student services.
“That’s not to suggest that we’re setting aside our plans to extend our on-campus housing,” Robinson said. “It’s a good option until we can expand the number of beds we have on campus and we do have plans to do that.”
CSULB currently has a waiting list of over 1,600 students who want to live in on-campus housing, according to Alexander.
“This more immediately helps us provide more residential opportunities and choices for students,” Alexander said.
Brooks College, a for-profit fashion and design school, located about a mile from CSULB at 4825 E. Pacific Coast Highway, was in the process of being sold by the owner, Career Education Corp., but could not find an appropriate buyer to keep the school alive as is and eventually sold it to CSULB.
“As the company realigns its focus, we determined that it was no longer in the best position to support Brooks College in order to enable long term future growth,” said Gary McCullough , president and CEO of C.E.C., in a prepared statement.
Any remaining students attending Brooks College have been inducted into programs that will ensure their completion or transfer them to another school. Most students, however, will be graduating before the CSULB take-over at then end of this year, according to Lynne Baker, a C.E.C. spokesperson.
“We haven’t been taking in new students for a while now,” Baker said. “We’ve worked very hard to make sure that our students complete their courses.”
According to Alexander, last year 240 CSULB students lived at Brooks College while approximately 20 residents were Brooks College students.
“There are so few Brooks students left that this really is not a big issue,” Alexander said.
With the rising housing and tuition rates, the Brooks College purchase will not necessarily help offset future housing costs for students.
“The purchase of the Brooks campus was primarily made to increase housing opportunities for CSULB students in an environment that would support their academic progress at the university,” Beron said. “Student fees or housing costs would not be impacted by this purchase.”
However, Alexander and Robinson agreed that the cost of living on campus or at Brooks is much less expensive than many other campuses or housing opportunities off campus.
Shuttle services will also be provided connecting the two campuses to encourage a safe environment just as on the main campus, according to Robinson.
“Specific determination of programs or classes to be offered has not yet been made,” Beron said.