Observing the crowded conditions on the Hill – the three-person dorm rooms, or the long, late-night lines at Puzzle’s eatery – students might assume university officials would look for ways to take on fewer tenants.
But not so.
They’re in fact doing just the opposite, striving to house a higher percentage of the UCLA student population in the next eight years. They aim to ensure that incoming freshman are offered four years, and transfer students two years, of guaranteed on-campus living. Currently incoming freshmen are guaranteed two years of housing, and transfers one.
As these policies begin to be put in place, UCLA – once a commuter school – is going through an at-times painful transition, becoming primarily a residential campus where approximately 60 percent of students will live on or within a mile of campus by 2010, according to housing projections.
The change in mission is happening when the university is growing at rates unseen in a generation. If housing was not to expand their guarantees, it would still have over-crowding issues, as UCLA expects an increase of 4,000 full-time equivalent students by 2010.
But Chancellor Albert Carnesale and housing officials alike said providing more housing close to campus is a goal well worth pursuing.
UCLA has come a long way since its early, humbler days as the Southern Branch of the University of California, when students often lived at home, drove in for classes and drove back after them. The home of the Bruins is now much more than an extension of the Berkeley campus.
A world-class university in its own right, UCLA today draws students who need housing from all over the state, nation and world. On top of that, even students who are from Los Angeles or nearby often opt to spend at least part of their Bruin experiences living in the dorms.
And well they should, said Carnesale, adding that living on or near campus can contribute greatly to the non-academic aspects of college life.
“It’s becoming more and more attractive to live on campus or near campus and be part of the broader UCLA community, as opposed to having to plan your student life around the traffic on the 405 Freeway,” Carnesale said in a press conference with the Daily Bruin last Friday.
“There’s a lot that goes on at the campus ... that is outside the classroom,” he said. “There are activities, there are clubs, there are all kinds of things ... that turn out to be a lot more difficult if you have to worry about when you have to go home” to an off-campus residence, he said.
In Carnesale’s view, living near campus can be fundamental to the quality of student life. But that doesn’t mean the transition to housing more students is going to be easy.
The numbers make an impression: 2,000 additional bed spaces for undergraduates in two high rise dorms are to be added in the next eight years.
With campus dorms approaching 125 percent capacity, the university hopes to reduce the number of students living in triples, making even more units necessary.
The university is also looking to provide 2,000 single graduate students with housing by 2010, whereas now housing for single graduate students is almost nonexistent. Providing housing, they hope, will work as a recruitment tool for top graduate students.
The process of taking more students in involves not just more rooms and beds, but also building and renovating dining commons, computer labs and administrative spaces.
The changes will not be easy or quick – and will be expensive.
The university needs to prepare for “Tidal Wave II,” the expected influx of about 50,000 students to the UC by 2010, on all fronts – it needs to build more classrooms, renovate old ones and hire more teachers.
But housing more students presents a unique problem: all housing costs are auxiliary – they cannot be provided through California taxpayer dollars.
Looking to expand its operation, housing still must meet the bottom line. Utilities, wages of housing employees and basic student services need to be paid without the help of state money.
And so do the costs of construction.
Housing officials admit that some of the burden will be passed on to students who pay room and board fees.
“There is not only natural inflation increases in cost, there will be additional increases in cost because of the buildings,” said Alan Hanson, the director of the Office of Residential Life.
Housing room and board at UCLA is already rather high given UCLA’s West-Los Angeles location near Bel Air, Westwood and Brentwood. Though students can expect higher-than-usual room and board increases over the next few years, Michael Foraker, the director of housing said such increases to pay for expansion are not unprecedented at UCLA.
“That’s been true in different periods in our own history,” he said.
Despite various challenges, Foraker and Hanson said housing should be able to meet demand.