Dive Summary:
- Oregon's State Board of Higher Education approved a plan last week for Oregon State University-Cascades to expand into a four-year school, with the first freshman class scheduled to start in the fall of 2015.
- The school's next steps will be to hire more professors, establish residence halls and acquire more space, and Oregon State President Ed Ray says he hopes to expand the school's current enrollment of about 1,000 students to as many as 5,000 students by 2025.
- OSU-Cascades Vice President Becky Johnson says administrators will aggressively market the school to high school students in surrounding states like California and Washington to even out the high percentage of students from the region currently enrolled in the school.
From the article:
The state is closing the giant hole in the middle of its public university system — Central Oregon. The State Board of Higher Education last week approved a plan allowing Oregon State University-Cascades to expand into a four-year school, fulfilling a goal the region has chased for at least a quarter-century. The first freshman class is scheduled to start in the fall of 2015. Enrollment, currently at about 1,000 students, is expected to double by 2019 and expand to 3,000-to-5,000 students by 2025, said Ed Ray, president of Oregon State. ...