Lake Havasu City “could be the first” Arizona State University campus located outside of the Phoenix area under a new statewide drive to increase undergraduate degrees, said David A. Young, ASU’s senior vice president of academic affairs.

If everything goes according to plan, the campus could open here the fall 2011, according to ASU officials.

The university is discussing the option with other cities, but Lake Havasu City stands out because of a planned vacancy at Daytona Middle School July 1, Young said.

In February, the Lake Havasu Unified School District governing board voted to close one of its two middle schools here to cut costs on a depleting budget for next school year.

The Lake Havasu City City Council, the Havasu Foundation for Higher Education Board and the school district governing board are all expected to vote on an agreement Tuesday to launch a 45-day study to determine if an ASU campus would be supported here.

“I think it’s general good business practice for the parties to define who is responsible for what and the time frame to make sure that everyone understands who is obliged to do what by when,” said ASU spokeswoman Terri Shafer about the agreement. “What it does is it clarifies expectations.”

The four-page agreement allows ASU to collect data in the city’s region and southern California to determine the projected enrollment in the college for the first three years of operation. It also allows ASU to explore the Daytona Middle School site.

In the agreement, the city would consent to raise $25,000 to help finance the feasibility study, according to both the agreement and Shafer.

The agreement further states that the funding cannot come from the entities involved in the agreement — the city, the foundation and the school district — and if the $25,000 isn’t raised, the city is not required to use any of its money to pay the amount.

The agreement also prohibits all parties involved to not enter into discussions about other college-level educational facilities in the area, outside of the ASU possibility.

School district governing board President Jo Navaretta said “it feels great” to have this possibility moving forward.

“I think it’s something that the community really needs,” she said. “It’s going to be terrific for our students in the area and anyone who wants to come to this area to go to school even. It’s just really exciting and I’m ecstatic.”

Navaretta was also board president of the foundation during 2009. The foundation has worked since 2004 to bring a four-year university here.

Currently, Mohave Community College operates one of its four branches in Lake Havasu City, and Northern Arizona University has an extended campus here.

ASU officials say if the study’s results are “positive and if funding allows,” the new program would open up under the Colleges@ASU initiative, which offers a “limited number of high-demand degrees, such as business and education,” and has “lower tuition levels than Arizona’s research universities.”

The Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s universities, recently approved a tuition increase for ASU to reach about $8,128 a year for a resident undergraduate freshman starting this fall, according to the ABOR Web site. The University of Arizona’s main campus was the only college in the state with a higher tuition at $8,237 annually, according to the Web site.

ABOR updated its vision plan to become nationally competitive and increase baccalaureate production throughout the next 10 years in March 2009.

Part of that plan includes a “structural evolution for the university system” to provide more cost-efficient, high-access options for students statewide, including new baccalaureate campuses.

Officials in Lake Havasu City have previously said the campus would be an economic injection to the area, and the Daytona Middle School site provides easy access to Main Street merchants and possible dormitories.

You may contact the reporter at jleatherman@havasunews.com