Enrollment up at LSC, four other state colleges located at one campus

Created as a place for Northwest Houston residents to have more opportunities to earn higher degrees closer to home, Lone Star College System's University Park has become a bustling education hub for students looking to get everything from associate's degrees to PhDs.

After LSCS renovated 1.2 million square feet of the former Hewlett-Packard campus for University Park, four four-year colleges moved in. University Center at University Park houses University of Houston Northwest Campus, University of Houston-Downtown Northwest, Sam Houston State University and Texas Southern University so students can earn college credit while attending the community college.

The complex, which includes eight buildings on the 45-acre campus, has a 10,000-plus student capacity. With room for two more schools, LSCS is recruiting other colleges to call University Park home, said Shah Ardalan, LSCS's vice chancellor and chief information officer.

"The beauty of University Park is to offer all of these education options in one location," Ardalan said. "We knew that if we built it, they would come. Most of our classes are full, our faculty is happy and our students are happy. This is what the board of trustees and our chancellor envisioned."

LSCS gained Northwest Houston's vote in the May 2008 bond election by pledging to build a university center in the area to serve the 15,000 students who attend LSC-CyFair and the surrounding community.

However, LSC-University Park was never meant to take students from LSC-CyFair, but to be a separate entity for the growing Northwest Houston area.

Enrollment up

At the start of the year, the LSC portion of the campus, LSC-University Park, officially became the sixth college of the system, not just part of a center. Surpassing expectations, the school's spring enrollment has gone up by 10 percent more than last year at the same time, bringing the total to more than 4,000 LSC students at the location.

"We are still part of the college system but we are going to do things a little differently," Ardalan said. "This campus is built on innovation. We are trying things that we can either use at other campuses or things that are hot around the nation."

The four other colleges' combined enrollment went from about 2,000 students last spring to more than 3,000 during the comparable 2012 semester.

The Northwest Houston presence gives the schools a chance to reach new students. Texas Southern has seen a 100 percent growth in enrollment over the past three semesters, said Tau Kadhi, executive director and assistant dean of the Texas Southern University Northwest Campus.

UH-Northwest's student body has increased by more than 90 percent over the spring 2011 semester. It also added 55 percent more available courses at the campus.

Last year, UH-Northwest began to offer bachelor's degrees in psychology and mechanical engineering programs. In the fall, the school will launch its Bauer College of Business, providing a place for students to earn an MBA degree.

"Students that attend Lone Star College and reside in the northwest area no longer have to make the commute into Houston to gain access to educational opportunities," said Lonnie Howard, UH's executive director of university outreach. "They can do it in their own backyard."

UH built an additional 12,500 square feet at University Park to meet the growth.

Part of the increase in overall enrollment can be attributed to people's interest in attending community college, which is the fastest growing segment in education, Ardalan said.

"When the job market is bad our enrollment is up because people come back to school for a quick retooling. They want to learn something or earn a certificate to go back to work," Ardalan said. "No one is looking down on community colleges like they did in the past. They realize they can take their classes here close to home and take that credit to four-year universities and transfer at one-fifth of the cost."

Working relationship

LSC and the other schools have articulation agreements in place so when students start their college career they know exactly what classes are needed to meet certain requirements when they transfer.

"This is a very futuristic model in terms of several different university partners coming together to increase the education opportunities for people living in the northwest corridor," Howard said. "What is very noble about this relationship is that each university has decided to offer non-competing programs to make sure that we are not in competition with each other, but really serving the needs of our students."

Combined, the schools offer about 60 different degrees. Communication is key to coordinating the effort so that students get the most bang for their buck.

"It's a very good partnership. We share a lot of our information," Kadhi said. "We are all aware that each one of our success helps each other. It is a really good design. We all have different programs, so it is not a matter of competition."

Running the gamut, University Park added a charter high school last year called iSchool High. The goal is to give students in grades 9–12 the chance to take both high school and college courses.

"When making presentations on University Park across the country, we are calling it the 'college of the 21st century,'" Ardalan said. "I don't know how many places there are in the nation where you can get your GED and PhD in the same place. People are looking for a complete solution."