Education leaders announced long-term plans Wednesday to boost college enrollment in Kern County by teaching children and teens that college is both affordable and accessible to all.

The press conference announcement from members of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium came as higher education budgets are being cut by the state and enrollments capped. Cal State Bakersfield has already frozen its 2004 spring enrollments and Bakersfield College has cut 6 percent of its class offerings since last fall.

The hope is that budgets will eventually increase, allowing for more growth.

The consortium is launching the "College Next" campaign, a plan to educate parents and students from middle school through high school on how to make college a reality. It includes teaching what classes to take, how to get financial aid and convincing students of the value of college by showing them the earning potential of a college graduate over a lifetime.

Kern High School District Superintendent Bill Hatcher said his district is already reaching out to children as early as the elementary school years.

"We're putting posters up in the fifth grade on how to get to college," Hatcher said. "We are talking to the students and their parents, telling them that they have to take the rigorous courses."

Just 14 percent of Kern residents, half the state average, have a bachelor's degree or higher, according to 2000 U.S. Census figures.

Patrick Collins, president of the Kern Economic Development Corp., said businesses look for an educated work force when deciding whether to locate here. He said potential jobs are being lost in Kern County to other areas because of an uneducated work force.

CSUB President Tomas Arciniega said a bachelor's degree has become essential in the modern work force.

"Our success won't be measured until years from now," Arciniega said of the College Next program. "You have to ask, why is it that we don't have more students going to college? We have to improve on those statistics. We have to get more young people to have college in their dreams."

Besides low freshman enrollments, there is a retention problem. BC President Sandra Serrano said about 800 students transfer from BC annually into four-year universities. The number of transfers should be more than double that, she said.

BC is expecting to have about 16,000 students enrolled this fall, slightly less than last fall.

CSUB is projected to serve 8,100 students in the fall, including 1,100 at its Antelope Valley campus. University officials have already been told there will be no growth budgeted for the 2004-05 school year, said CSUB's Director of Institutional Planning Terry Dunn. But if growth is allowed after that, the student population will swell.

"My guess is that we would hit 10,000 students in fall 2007," Dunn said.