Sherrill Amador couldn’t be more wrong.

During the past six months, the Palomar College president has been telling local groups and the media that it does not make sense to build an education center in Poway. She says Palomar doesn’t draw enough students from Poway Unified to warrant a campus, and she has complained that the land set aside for the school would require extensive grading and isn’t large enough to allow future expansion.

“With the data we’ve assembled, it appears the center would be a constant drain to us and little use to the community,” Amador told a Poway Chamber of Commerce luncheon in April. And two weeks ago she said, “As you get more into the statistics and looking at all the options, Poway doesn’t seem to be the best way to go.”

Amador’s reasoning simply ignores some important facts.

Certainly the college should not spend its scarce resources to build a campus that no one will use, and certainly the college should build in an area where it feels it can grow in the future.

However, when you look closely at the numbers, Poway not only appears to be “the best way to go,” it becomes the only way to go.

According to Palomar’s own enrollment statistics, more students living within the PUSD attend the college than any other community except Escondido. That’s more than Oceanside, more than Vista and more than the college’s hometown of San Marcos. The 3,272 local students make up nearly 12 percent of Palomar’s 27,904-student population. If you add the school’s 893 students from Ramona — who would clearly benefit from a campus in Poway — that number shoots up to 15 percent.

What’s more, the state is changing admissions criteria to shift students who graduate from PUSD high schools away from SDSU and into Cal State San Marcos, which is also Palomar’s primary transfer school. This change will likely attract more than the current 20 percent of PUSD graduates to Palomar. And if the college builds in Poway, those students will be able to attend classes in town instead of adding more cars to our jammed freeways. Traffic congestion will become more of a concern over the next 20 years because the PUSD is expected to grow from 32,000 students to 41,000.

Amador said Palomar may build a campus in the northern reaches of its district to better serve roughly 1,100 students who travel from southern Riverside County to attend the school in San Marcos. This idea makes absolutely no sense — those students live outside Palomar’s boundaries.

Amador’s other concern — that the 30-acre Poway site at Ted Williams Parkway and Pomerado Road is too small to allow expansion — should be addressed. But it’s not worth scrapping plans for the Poway site for two reasons.

First, it’s doubtful Palomar would ever be able to build a full-fledged campus with sports fields, theaters and all. Resources for community college campuses are scarce, and it’s unlikely the state will cough up the funds to build another 100-acre campus for Palomar. While California’s economic situation could turn around, we’re not confident that will translate into more money for community colleges. Palomar has been struggling for years to get $25.4 million to build a new science complex on its main campus, which will be the first new academic building on campus in decades.

Second, if Amador has her heart set on building a large campus, another site could be found. While it would be difficult to find the 160 acres Amador wants within the city of Poway, the college could look for land elsewhere within the sprawling PUSD boundaries.

Efforts to bring a Palomar campus to Poway have been ongoing for nearly a decade. The city gave the college $6 million to build the campus and provided the 30-acre site. But despite those efforts, the college is now backing away.

Fortunately, Amador does not have the last word. The college is still studying all of its options, and Palomar’s Governing Board will make a final decision within the next few months.

Two of the five board members — Robert Dougherty and Michelle Nelson — live in Poway and are up for re-election this year. Local residents need to tell Dougherty and Nelson it would be wise to continue plans to build a Poway campus — because when you look at the numbers, Poway is the “best way to go.”