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Big changes since I was there about a decade ago. I had a $1300 stipend as a CS PhD student, and rent for a modest studio on pacific avenue ate up about $750 of

Big changes since I was there about a decade ago. I had a $1300 stipend as a CS PhD student, and rent for a modest studio on pacific avenue ate up about $750 of that. I was 2 blocks from the beach. Pacific Avenue is the main strip downtown, and is relatively nice. In retrospect, I was getting a bargain. Notably, non science and engineering grad students got smaller stipends. So it was tough for them even then, hopefully the university has raised their package since then. I’ll also add than non-cs grad students did not get lucrative summer gigs to soften the blow. 3 months at Google can make life much easier the rest of the year.

noobermin 8y ago
What about this, as an immediate remedy, how about the state and the government (on some hypothetical day they care about this) incentivize sending students to other schools across the country, and then investing money into said schools to improve them?
- ASpring 8y ago
  Or even just other UCs. Merced/Irvine/Riverside are not experiencing housing crises at this level. Sending more students to UC Santa Cruz is just irresponsible.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Possibly wildly unpopular opinion: Offer relocation to academic staff to other UCs and sell the UC Santa Cruz property to developers, upzoned, and reinvesting the proceeds into the UC school system. It increases housing available, and it's financially beneficial to UC (which could buy up land for student housing around its other campuses, insulting it from this occurring in the future). Sometimes you have to retreat when the sea (of rising property costs) is invading your costal property.
    - noobermin 8y ago
      I think one thing that would help is to make sure the staff could still be affiliated with the more prestigious UC's so they can put that affiliation on articles. As asinine as that is, it would allow academics especially to be more willing to move.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      I doubt very many professors at Santa Cruz would want to move unless they could work at a more prestigious university, and all of those are located in areas with high housing costs like Berkeley and Los Angeles. Actually, a lot of professors at UC Davis commute from the East Bay because they don't want to live in the Central Valley. It's a pretty tall order to convince successful tenured professors living in a beachfront community, most of whom are homeowners and contribute to the NIMBYism of the area, to move somewhere else.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        It's a pretty tall order to ask taxpayers to subsidize the cost of a college beachfront community. We could just close up UC Santa Cruz and call it a day, no relo offer on the table. If you can't terminate tenured professors because you've closed the facility down, buy them out with revenue from selling the campus. Tax dollars for education should not subsidize expensive real estate markets. You can still have your job, we're not under any obligation to keep it within walking distance of your beach front property.
        noobermin 8y ago
        To be fair, I don't think the bulk of the cost of the university goes to the real estate of professors. That said, of course there should be incentives to get professors to move.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        The problem is the need to subsidize student housing due to high real estate costs, not professors. If professors don't want to move, we're subsidizing them through student housing subsidization. Apologies if I didn't make that thought clear.
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Can people affiliated with UCSC comment on this? I'm not aware if UCSC really has a leg up in terms of prestige compared to the big ones (Berkley, Santa Barbara, San Fransisco, LA...)
    - philsnow 8y ago
      Well, UCSF doesn't have an undergraduate program, so it's unwise to directly compare their prestige to other UCs. At least in computer science, UCSC has a decent reputation. Among UCs, computer science goes roughly Berkeley > LA/SD > SC/Davis/SB > the others. Non-computer science, I think Berkeley and UCLA are way above the rest except for isolated specific departments.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      When I was at the UCs the percieved ranking among students was: Top tier: Berkeley and UCLA, for sure Second tier: most of the other ones; people love to argue about the order, but honestly most of them don't stand out above the others except for certain degree programs Bottom tier: definitely includes UC Merced, and maybe UC Riverside UC Merced opened in 2005 without many degree programs and faculty, and it's slowly growing. So its poor ranking is due to that more than anything else.
- prostoalex 8y ago
  Isn’t browsing rental listings for one’s target university an incentive already?
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Assuming 18 year olds get around to doing this or even know to do this. At the very least, the university should make it clear the issues surrounding housing on campus.
- true_tuna 8y ago
  Students who applied want to go there specifically. It would be hubris to think we could comprehend the 7 thousand individual reasons each student chose to go there. I’m not sure why the administration decided to accept more students than usual, but it’s a problem That exists even if you accept a normal number of applicants. Every year more people move to economically vibrant areas in Northern California, but established land owning voters(and renters afraid of displacement) block every attempt to build new housing. This simple equation of demand being ten times supply pushes the price of housing up to insane levels and squeezes the least fortunate out the bottom. Why can’t we just admit that we are ethically required to permit sufficient housing in our cities? (I mean permit in the literal senses of both to allow and to issue building permits for) If we fail to do that we squeeze out the poor, elderly, less skilled —exacerbating the homelessness crisis worsening traffic (since normal people like clerks, teachers and baristas have to commute from outside the city for jobs in the city) and creating a bland monoculture. My immediate remedy is: how about we stop blocking every effort to build new housing?

noobermin 8y ago

What about this, as an immediate remedy, how about the state and the government (on some hypothetical day they care about this) incentivize sending students to other schools across the country, and then investing money into said schools to improve them?

ASpring 8y ago
Or even just other UCs. Merced/Irvine/Riverside are not experiencing housing crises at this level. Sending more students to UC Santa Cruz is just irresponsible.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Possibly wildly unpopular opinion: Offer relocation to academic staff to other UCs and sell the UC Santa Cruz property to developers, upzoned, and reinvesting the proceeds into the UC school system. It increases housing available, and it's financially beneficial to UC (which could buy up land for student housing around its other campuses, insulting it from this occurring in the future). Sometimes you have to retreat when the sea (of rising property costs) is invading your costal property.
  - noobermin 8y ago
    I think one thing that would help is to make sure the staff could still be affiliated with the more prestigious UC's so they can put that affiliation on articles. As asinine as that is, it would allow academics especially to be more willing to move.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    I doubt very many professors at Santa Cruz would want to move unless they could work at a more prestigious university, and all of those are located in areas with high housing costs like Berkeley and Los Angeles. Actually, a lot of professors at UC Davis commute from the East Bay because they don't want to live in the Central Valley. It's a pretty tall order to convince successful tenured professors living in a beachfront community, most of whom are homeowners and contribute to the NIMBYism of the area, to move somewhere else.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      It's a pretty tall order to ask taxpayers to subsidize the cost of a college beachfront community. We could just close up UC Santa Cruz and call it a day, no relo offer on the table. If you can't terminate tenured professors because you've closed the facility down, buy them out with revenue from selling the campus. Tax dollars for education should not subsidize expensive real estate markets. You can still have your job, we're not under any obligation to keep it within walking distance of your beach front property.
      - noobermin 8y ago
        To be fair, I don't think the bulk of the cost of the university goes to the real estate of professors. That said, of course there should be incentives to get professors to move.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        The problem is the need to subsidize student housing due to high real estate costs, not professors. If professors don't want to move, we're subsidizing them through student housing subsidization. Apologies if I didn't make that thought clear.
- noobermin 8y ago
  Can people affiliated with UCSC comment on this? I'm not aware if UCSC really has a leg up in terms of prestige compared to the big ones (Berkley, Santa Barbara, San Fransisco, LA...)
  - philsnow 8y ago
    Well, UCSF doesn't have an undergraduate program, so it's unwise to directly compare their prestige to other UCs. At least in computer science, UCSC has a decent reputation. Among UCs, computer science goes roughly Berkeley > LA/SD > SC/Davis/SB > the others. Non-computer science, I think Berkeley and UCLA are way above the rest except for isolated specific departments.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    When I was at the UCs the percieved ranking among students was: Top tier: Berkeley and UCLA, for sure Second tier: most of the other ones; people love to argue about the order, but honestly most of them don't stand out above the others except for certain degree programs Bottom tier: definitely includes UC Merced, and maybe UC Riverside UC Merced opened in 2005 without many degree programs and faculty, and it's slowly growing. So its poor ranking is due to that more than anything else.
prostoalex 8y ago
Isn’t browsing rental listings for one’s target university an incentive already?
- noobermin 8y ago
  Assuming 18 year olds get around to doing this or even know to do this. At the very least, the university should make it clear the issues surrounding housing on campus.
true_tuna 8y ago
Students who applied want to go there specifically. It would be hubris to think we could comprehend the 7 thousand individual reasons each student chose to go there. I’m not sure why the administration decided to accept more students than usual, but it’s a problem That exists even if you accept a normal number of applicants. Every year more people move to economically vibrant areas in Northern California, but established land owning voters(and renters afraid of displacement) block every attempt to build new housing. This simple equation of demand being ten times supply pushes the price of housing up to insane levels and squeezes the least fortunate out the bottom. Why can’t we just admit that we are ethically required to permit sufficient housing in our cities? (I mean permit in the literal senses of both to allow and to issue building permits for) If we fail to do that we squeeze out the poor, elderly, less skilled —exacerbating the homelessness crisis worsening traffic (since normal people like clerks, teachers and baristas have to commute from outside the city for jobs in the city) and creating a bland monoculture. My immediate remedy is: how about we stop blocking every effort to build new housing?