The Voice - Student Newspaper

Northwest Valley needs a college campus

By Michelle Tabatabai-Shahab
Reporter, The VOICE

The plan for a Northwest Valley Community College (NVCC) has been continually cast aside.

Ideally the NVCC would benefit Peoria, Surprise, El Mirage, Wickenburg, and towns farther northwest.

Aspiring college students are affected the most.

Students pursuing a higher education will have to continue to commute long distances to the campuses closest to them such as Rio Salado College, Glendale Community College North Campus, Rio Salado Lifelong Learning, Glendale Community College, and Estrella Mountain Community College.

The problem is that with the current financial crisis, the student enrollment rate is expected to drop drastically due to the cost of living, the cost of classes, the cost of books, and the cost of gasoline to get to school.

With all of the factors to take into account many students will turn away from their education and turn to full time jobs.

The College District put the pitch in motion in 2006 by purchasing a 90-acre site for NVCC in Surprise and Laveen for $14 million. NVCC planners were predicting that the Maricopa County would see a rise in enrollment rates by 43 percent.

With a turn of fiscal events, NVCC planners put the construction of NVCC on the back burner for a few years.

As 2009 approaches, NVCC planners consider scrapping the plan, as it is unpredictable whether the area can produce enough students to justify building a new branch into the Maricopa Community College District.

The spokesman for Maricopa Community Colleges, Charles Reinebold, explained that "the current economy is affecting expansion. Almost all the colleges have had to reconfigure their planning…re-look at all those projects [and] downsize or delay."

Before scrapping the NVCC plan entirely, planners might be asking voters for a new bond in 2014 that will begin construction. The district hopes that, like in 2004, voters will be happy enough to grant a new bond.

Although dampening the hopes that NVCC will exist not just on paper, Lionel Diaz doesn't think they'll "even go out for a bond in 2014" Lionel Diaz is the district's associate dean for capital planning.

To help students achieve a higher education, Estrella Mountain Community College has been sending professors to teach business-oriented classes at Wickenburg High School.

With a twenty year outlook, the Northwest Valley hasn't given up on the hope that one day their community will have a public or private college.