Steps toward accessible education[/caption]

More than two years after voters approved a $485 million Lone Star College System bond in November 2014, two bond projects in the Tomball and Magnolia areas continue to hit delays.

LSCS officials announced last fall that construction of a $5 million oil and gas training center planned for the LSC-Tomball campus has been tabled until the energy sector economy recovers from the ongoing oil and gas downturn. Meanwhile, the LSC-Magnolia Center is still slated to open as a satellite campus of LSC-Montgomery in the next few years, LSC-Montgomery President Rebecca Riley said.

However, as LSCS officials have neither chosen a location for the Magnolia Center nor outlined which training programs the center will offer, an exact timeline of when the center will begin enrolling students could not be provided.

“I would say we’re still looking at several months before we get to a ground breaking kind of thing,” Riley said.

Choosing a Magnolia site
The 65,000-square-foot Magnolia Center, estimated to cost $23 million to $25 million, will be modeled after the LSC-Creekside Center, a satellite campus of LSC-Tomball, Riley said.

Riley said the college has been presented by staff and developers with three possible locations for the Magnolia Center based on four needs determined by LSCS officials: ease of access, sufficient acreage, convenient location for educational partnerships and good visibility.

“We believe that we have some candidates now that we’ll be able to actually make a decision on,” Riley said.

Riley said major area road projects, such as the Tomball Tollway extension and the FM 1488 overpass at FM 149, have delayed the selection of a location for the center. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, construction of the overpass will wrap up in late 2017, and the extension of the Tomball Tollway—the tolled portion of Hwy. 249—through Montgomery County will be finished by December 2019.

“Part of [the search] has been related to how quickly the final routes for some of the highway infrastructure that’s being built over the next few years gets put in place [in Magnolia],” Riley said.

While LSCS officials could not provide details about the three potential sites, Riley said the Magnolia Center will be located along or close to a major thoroughfare, such as Hwy. 249, FM 149 or FM 1488.



Increased enrollment
The LSC-Magnolia Center will provide easy access to education for Magnolia residents and those in the surrounding communities, Riley said.

“The main thing is that it will serve a rapidly growing area more conveniently than they are currently being served,” she said.

LSCS Chancellor Stephen Head said Magnolia ISD projects nearly 9,000 additional residents in its district by 2020.

“We feel the time is right to ensure those citizens have convenient access to Lone Star College close to home,”he said.

Meanwhile, Head said enrollment has grown 10 percent in the last five years within the college system. More than 85,000 students total were enrolled at campuses for the fall 2016 semester.

“Our service area continues to see explosive growth,” he said. “Lone Star College is a top choice among area high school seniors, averaging 1 in every 5 enrolling at LSC each year. And since the ISDs in our service area are projecting nearly 250,000 new residents by 2020, we don’t see our growth slowing down anytime soon.”

Throughout the college system, enrollment at each campus outpaces growth projections from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that were released in a January 2017 report. The report forecasts enrollment through 2030 based on 2011-15 data. According to LSCS officials, more than 14,000 students were enrolled at LSC-Montgomery last fall—a number not projected until 2025, according to the THECB.

The THECB projected slow enrollment growth for LSC-Tomball—based on trends from 2011-15—with just less than 8,000 students enrolled at the campus by 2030. According to LSCS data, fall enrollment decreased from 2014 to 2015 before increasing again in 2016.

Enrollment exceeded 9,000 students last fall, LSC-Tomball President Lee Ann Nutt said.

“For two semesters in a row, our spring semester enrollment is higher than our fall semester enrollment, which is an unusual trend,” Nutt said. “To me, that says we’re doing a good job of retaining more students from one semester to the next while continuing to attract more students.”

The Creekside Center saw a 218 percent increase in enrollment from spring 2016—its first year enrolling students—to spring 2017, Nutt said. Enrollment grew from 347 students to 1,102 students during that time.

“I think [the Magnolia Center] just provides more opportunity for more students, which makes Lone Star [College] stronger overall,” Nutt said.

Growing enrollment[/caption]

Educational opportunities
In addition to general education courses necessary for transferring to a four-year institution, the Magnolia Center will offer select workforce programs that will best serve the Magnolia community and its employers—according to updated labor market data, Riley said.

“One of our core values is access—easy access to higher education—so [the Magnolia Center is] mostly about location, but it’s also about adding the kind of workforce programs that will best serve the employers in that community,” she said.

Choosing a location near Magnolia ISD will also provide more academic opportunities for students to earn college credit before graduating, Riley said.

MISD Superintendent Todd Stephens said he foresees the Magnolia Center increasing student interest in pursuing higher education.

“We’re excited about the potential it’s going to bring for our kids and for our community to have a facility right here within our district,” Stephens said. “I think it will encourage a lot of those kids [to give higher education] a try. If you break down any of the barriers that distance may potentially have, I think obviously it will help kids to move in that direction.”

Based on estimated drive times, Magnolia residents travel 10-20 miles to access an LSC facility, the closest of which being LSC-Tomball and LSC-Montgomery.

“It’s all about location and about making affordable higher education accessible to everybody in the community,” Riley said.

Oil and gas center update
In March, LSC-Tomball officials said the college’s oil and gas training center project continues to be on hold due to the ongoing oil and gas downturn.

“While no set date has been established as to when Lone Star [College] will re-evaluate the oil and gas training center, we continuously assess the climate and the demand for all training,” Nutt said. “In the interim, [a] partnership with Baker Hughes continues to provide an outstanding training facility for Lone Star College students.”

According to the 2014 bond referendum, plans for the 15,000-square-foot facility include a functional rig for training and engineering technology. LSC-Tomball purchased 18 acres of land for the center in early 2016 near Hwy. 249 and Holderrieth Road in Tomball.

“We look forward to fulfilling our mission through the opening of new centers so more people can learn needed skills, acquire knowledge and ultimately attain high-quality employment in the field.”

Paving the way to higher education[/caption]