POV: The California Student Housing Crisis

By: Tania Salceda

To many, including myself, I am considered one of the lucky ones. Why? Well, as a first-generation, low-income, queer, latina student I have an adequate roof over my head even at 300 miles away from home. Some may wonder, how can she possibly afford to go to college? Especially because, only low-income students know that financial aid does not even closely cover all educational costs. 

Luckily, my living expenses are funded by an accumulation of smaller scholarships, grants, and work-study. However, there is an ongoing issue that I need to address: my estimated total cost of attendance is around $40,000 a year, and I'm sure it is even more for some students. So, please tell me why students are not receiving quality basic amenities and resources that their universities claim to be on top of and addressing? This includes affordable housing and basic necessities such as stable wifi in on-campus housing and all across the university, adequate enough to not affect our quality of work. This is especially important now as we are still navigating life with a global pandemic, and going virtual is always a possibility for work, school, and other day to day tasks. Rent is already extremely high and it is inexcusable for university housing to take months to address pressing living problems. 

Additionally, nothing compares “to the suffering that students have to face because of a lack of access to affordable housing. In their effort to run like a corporate machine, universities and their systems often forget the very human needs of those who attend their university and fund it in the first place” (UCR Highlander). As time passes we are seeing more and more students being affected by the California housing crisis—which has produced its own subsection in higher education: the California Student Housing Crisis.