The brand-new University of Hawaii-West Oahu campus, open for just two months, is already experiencing growing pains.
Enrollment at the $175 million Kapolei campus has shot up so fast, administrators are concerned that state funding may not be able to keep up with the demand.
A little more than 2,000 students enrolled at UH-West Oahu this fall, a 22 percent increase, and projections are that enrollment might double in five years. That would take UH-West Oahu from one of the smallest schools in the UH system to a campus with a student body about the size of UH-Hilo.
But while UH-Hilo’s operating budget is $63 million, UH-West Oahu’s is about $11 million.
"If anyone did the math, we’re not nearly where we need to be to adequately fund the growth we’re anticipating," UH-West Oahu Chancellor Gene Awakuni said Friday in an interview.
About half of the budget comes from state taxpayers; the rest, from tuition and other sources.
Last year, when UH-West Oahu was housed in portable classrooms at Leeward Community College, the college didn’t have to worry about paying for electricity, water, security or custodial costs.
"When we were in Pearl City, it wasn’t as difficult a situation. Now we have to float on our own, and we have to pay for everything," Awakuni said.
Opening the new campus in Kapolei has meant hiring about 22 new employees to provide security and maintain the buildings and grounds.
UH-West Oahu also doubled the number of lecturers teaching classes to deal with the enrollment growth, to 60 this year from about 30 last year.
"It’s like, you keep running, you see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you have to keep running and you never seem to reach it," said Donna Kiyosaki, UH-West Oahu vice chancellor for administration.
Many of the new jobs are considered temporary because the state Legislature hasn’t authorized the new positions.
Awakuni said the campus needs about $2.5 million next year to make the new jobs permanent and for money to hire more faculty and staff.
Making sure there is enough faculty and financial support for faculty is also a concern of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. WASC, which provides accreditation for UH-West Oahu, cited faculty hiring and stability in senior leadership as areas that need to be addressed before the next WASC accreditation visit in 2014.
Based on the projected enrollment growth, Awakuni anticipates a need to hire about 10 new faculty members a year at a cost, just for salaries, of about $750,000.
Kiyosaki said the campus also needs librarians and counselors.
"A lot of our freshmen now are the first in their families to go to college," she said. "They need more help so they can succeed in a four-year college."
Among the new employees next year at UH-West Oahu will be a different chancellor. Awakuni is retiring in June, after achieving his goal of launching the new campus.
"I want to leave the place in better shape than I left it, so whomever is there can feel some stability," he said.
Besides personnel costs, UH-West Oahu also has to pay back about $68 million in revenue bonds and an $18 million loan that helped finance the construction of the new campus.
The current business plan for the campus calls for UH-West Oahu to sell or lease land around the campus to repay the construction costs and to provide some annual revenue to operate the campus.
UH-West Oahu sold a 6-acre parcel next to the campus to Tokai University for $6 million last year. That paid for desks, chairs and other furniture and equipment for UH-West Oahu.
Awakuni said another land sale may be completed soon.
But plans to create and lease a new shopping/office complex next to the campus, the freeway and a possible new transit station remain unfulfiled.
In addition, the six existing buildings are just the first phase of a campus that could eventually serve 7,500 students.
If its current growth rate continues, the first phase will reach its capacity of about 3,000 to 4,000 students in five years.
"We’ve got to build more buildings," Awakuni said. "We’ll either need more help from the Legislature or we’ll have to sell more land."
State Rep. Sharon Har (D, Makakilo-Kapolei), a member of the House Finance Committee, said the Legislature is aware of UH-West Oahu’s funding needs.
She said she doesn’t see UH-West Oahu’s growth taking away funding from other campuses, noting that the university has been careful not to duplicate programs offered at UH-Manoa and UH-Hilo.
"It is incumbent on the Legislature to look at the entire UH system," she said. "It shouldn’t be the schools fighting against each other."
The UH system sees the new campus as serving an underserved and fast-growing area. It’s hoped that the enrollment growth will translate to higher college-going and graduation rates among students from Leeward Oahu, Central Oahu and the North Shore.
"We were supposed to have a four-year university 40 years ago, and the government is finally now keeping its promise," Har said.
"It (the new campus) provides kids with an opportunity to receive an education and not have to deal with traffic," Har said. "College is a great equalizer, which means providing access to education. Kids in West Oahu deserve the same access as kids living in East Oahu, living in Kahala and living in Hawaii Kai."
