Another candidate in California would be the adjoining “Santa Maria-Santa Barbara” and “San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande” Metropolitan Statistical Areas. In other words, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, with a combined population of around 750,000. The region has two existing public universities, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly SLO, but neither of them are accessible to B students.
You could maybe argue that the southern part of Santa Barbara County is within commuting distance of CSU Channel Islands in Ventura County, but there are still no practical public alternatives for northern SB County or SLO County. In practice, the local community colleges (like Allan Hancock or Cuesta) partner with non-local, non-selective private schools (like Brandman U, or U of La Verne). The privates offer the final two years of popular bachelor’s degrees through satellite programs on the campuses of the CCs. So accessible bachelor’s degrees are available – but not through a “public university”, only through a hybrid CC/private partnership. It’s an awkward arrangement that probably creates unnecessary hassle and expense for students. It would be better (in my opinion) to simply authorize the CCs to grant four-year degrees in places where the CSUs and UCs are no longer accessible.
In fact, it might not be a bad idea to authorize all of the California CCs to grant four-year degrees. It’s pretty clear that the growth of the CSU and UC systems has been insufficient to keep up with the surging demand for undergraduate education in California. One way to provide more supply would be to turn, say, 75 or 100 CCCs into four-year schools. There would obviously be costs to expand CCC facilities and to hire more faculty, but it still seems like this would be faster and cheaper than trying to build new CSU or UC campuses.