North Idaho Boom Puts Colleges On The Same Team Worry Over Future Of Higher Education Spurs Joint Effort By Three Schools

North Idaho’s population is going to swell and the new residents will want college classes, the presidents of three Idaho colleges warned Tuesday.

“This place is growing quickly, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down,” said University of Idaho President Robert Hoover.

Hoover joined acting North Idaho College President Ronald Bell and Lewis-Clark State College President James Hottois on Tuesday in presenting results from a new demographic study of North Idaho to the state Board of Education. The college presidents plan to take the figures and use them to help design a plan to serve the five northern counties’ future needs for higher education.

No one college will be able to fill all the needs, the three said. Instead, they all will have to work together.

“To serve the citizens correctly, we have to get off our old ways of doing things,” Bell said.

The three presidents identified three “bulges” in population in coming years:

Traditional college students. Although this has not been the growth area in North Idaho college classes in recent years, elementary and secondary schools in North Idaho are packed. “We know there is a heck of a boom going,” said Hoover. “We’ve got double sessions in Post Falls. So it’s coming.”

The 35- to 50-year-old age group. “They’re already very literate,” Hoover said. This group will demand postgraduate classes and work-related training, he said.

People over age 65. This age group will grow and become increasingly literate, the three said. Its members will demand non-degree classes in subjects that interest them.

North Idaho’s population will increase from 157,060 in 1995 to 181,908 by 2000, the study estimated, and it will jump to 199,870 by 2005.

By the year 2010, North Idaho would have more than 200,000 residents - 65 percent more than it had in the 1990 census.

Said Hottois: “It seems to us that these numbers provide a challenge to all Idaho post-secondary institutions.”

When the three presidents have pulled together their plan to serve North Idaho, they’ll present it in October to a state Board of Education meeting in Coeur d’Alene.

The study showed that North Idaho’s population is increasingly concentrating in Kootenai County. Kootenai County had 38 percent of the Panhandle’s population in 1960. The number had risen to 50.3 percent by 1980, and 58.8 percent in 1996.

About 45 percent of North Idaho residents who are 25 or older have had some education beyond high school, compared to a statewide figure of 49 percent. But there’s lots of variation between North Idaho counties, from a low of 32 percent in Shoshone to a high of 51 percent in Kootenai.

The study predicted that Kootenai County will continue to have the Panhandle’s strongest population growth, hitting 171,160 residents by 2010, up 75 percent from 1990. Bonner County would have the second-fastest growth, reaching 43,965 in 2010, and Shoshone County would be slowest.

The study said Shoshone County’s population appears to have stabilized, after years of loss. The economically troubled county lost a quarter of its population in the past three decades. The study predicts a gain of 2.6 percent between the 1990 census and the year 2010.

With the expected growth and demand for college classes, Hoover said, “We can’t put ‘em all in the space we have today.”

North Idaho will need more college buildings, the three presidents said. But that’s not the complete answer. The three also said they should serve more people by sharing facilities and making use of new, technology-based delivery systems for classes.

Eventually, North Idaho could have shared college facilities like one the University of Idaho and Idaho State University have established in Idaho Falls, or like a Bend, Ore., community college that has teamed with area universities to offer four-year degrees.

But, said Hoover, “The University of Idaho is not taking over NIC.”

Bell praised Hoover, Hottois and “past administrations at NIC” for starting collaborative efforts already. Both UI and LCSC offer degree programs in Coeur d’Alene.

Said Bell: “They had the foresight to start cooperating.”

, DataTimes