California, which has become ground zero for the affordable housing crisis in America, has been boosting college enrollment (with some exceptions) resulting in separate 16,000-person-long waitlists across two systems for available space in dorm facilities which have added some 35,000 beds since 2015.
A dearth of student housing is the main reason behind the controversial Munger Hall proposal at UC Santa Barbara. Other campuses are instituting rentable sleeping pods for those facing long commutes to and from their universities. The crisis has, in particular, affected a terrible toll among first and second-year undergraduates in the state that increasingly don’t come from secure financial backgrounds.
“I made it through the system,” Long Beach City College Interim President Michael Muñoz, who was himself a victim of housing insecurity when he was younger, explained to Bloomberg. “I feel guilt, because a lot of my peers who couldn’t get through community college had the same life experiences I had. We’re losing students — human beings with hopes and dreams that are being derailed.”
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