Efforts by a 12-school collegiate consortium to determine higher education needs in DuPage and Kane counties have been on-going since the spring of 1984.

NIU President John LaTourette said the West Surburban Regional Academic Consortium represents 12 higher education institutions located along Interstate 88’s high-tech corridor.

In its effots to determine higher education needs, WSRAC established a needs assessment survey in July 1986 to determine these needs and recently received the results of the survey.

LaTourette said three aspects of the survey were: occupational trends, a residential survey and an observation of employers’ needs.

The results showed businesses thought the needs of industry are not being met. LaTourette said a possible future solution will be to set up various multi-university sites where the 12 universities will cooperate and coordinate efforts to meet the needs.

The College of DuPage currently has a multi-university site where the Illinois Institute of Technology and Aurora University currently hold classes.

The reason for the varity of centers is to make programs available to people employed along the high-tech cooridor.

“People don’t want to travel more than 20 miles or 30 minutes,” LaTourette said. He said the demand for higher education is very high in the two counties.

The greatest demands are in the areas of computer science and business. “We will not be adding any new programs. We will only add to the resources we already have,” LaTourette said.

He said the objective is for each of the 12 institutions to contribute courses in their strong areas. “For example, we specialize in computer science but not in engineering. On the other hand, IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) and the University of Illinois at Chicago specialize in engineering.”