No Room

From the La Jolla Light: Large numbers of students have again ended up on waiting lists for campus housing at UC San Diego, which is struggling to meet demand as it rapidly grows in a region where off-campus lodging is in short supply and very expensive. The La Jolla university said 2,343 undergraduate, graduate and professional students are on housing lists for the fall quarter, which begins Monday, Sept. 25. The shortage most directly affects undergraduates, who account for 1,919 of the students needing a bed. That’s about 650 students higher than the undergraduate bed shortage that occurred two years ago.

Roughly 3,200 students were on waiting lists in 2021, a shortage that triggered a lot of anger among students and their parents. The new shortage “is causing anxiety among students because it’s so hard to find apartments off campus,” said Raymond Tran, editor of the UCSD Guardian, a campus newspaper. “You might have to go far away from campus and take a 40-minute bus ride to get here.” ...

Similar housing problems have plagued many of the eight other University of California campuses that serve undergraduates. At the Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses, some students ended up living in cars, vans or hotels last year. At UCSD, enrollment has increased by about 12,500 students over the past decade, surpassing the 42,000 mark. Campus officials say enrollment could reach 50,000 within a decade, making UCSD among the largest universities in the western United States.

Full story at https://www.lajollalight.com/news/education/story/2023-08-17/campus-housing-shortage-leaves-more-than-2-300-uc-san-diego-students-on-waiting-lists-for-beds.