3 ms·

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.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      > Tax dollars for education should not subsidize expensive real estate markets. How can that be avoided? Should we build every university in the middle of nowhere, and then move them around every 30 years because the university drew in enough people to cause housing to become expensive?
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        It can't be avoided. You should always be willing to evaluate the ongoing viability of a campus, regardless of location, and not consider any a sunk cost you could not possibly dispose of. Where does the requirement come from that a campus remain in the same location in perpetuity? There is no such requirement, just as a company might close a satellite office if the business requirements change.
      - stale2002 8y ago
        Well, the way to avoid this is to build enough properties such that a location is both attractive an inexpensive to live in.
      - prostoalex 8y ago
        Is popularity correlated with high costs? Looking at this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_university_campuses_by_enrollment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_univer... do College Station, Orlando, Columbus, Miami, Gainesville and Minneapolis carry significant premium as far as cost of living? Miami might, but it seems like it’s more due to the beach proximity and tourism industry than FIU.
- protomyth 8y ago
  It would have an interesting affect on the next college community that refuses to allow building permits. It would very much be like these pro-sports teams in the US and how they treat cities. It could really go either way, but I guess it works for the NFL.
- true_tuna 8y ago
  Why not just permit sufficient housing on campus? It’s not like there’s a lack of space. Take a virtual tour of the campus or look at an areal view. You could fit 3k new housing units into a thousand different empty spots on campus. The reason they can’t build is they’re being blocked. The reason they’re being blocked is the same reason there’s a housing crisis in the whole Bay Area. We’ve made it really easy to block new construction and really hard to build.
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.

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.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    > Tax dollars for education should not subsidize expensive real estate markets. How can that be avoided? Should we build every university in the middle of nowhere, and then move them around every 30 years because the university drew in enough people to cause housing to become expensive?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      It can't be avoided. You should always be willing to evaluate the ongoing viability of a campus, regardless of location, and not consider any a sunk cost you could not possibly dispose of. Where does the requirement come from that a campus remain in the same location in perpetuity? There is no such requirement, just as a company might close a satellite office if the business requirements change.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Well, the way to avoid this is to build enough properties such that a location is both attractive an inexpensive to live in.
    - prostoalex 8y ago
      Is popularity correlated with high costs? Looking at this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_university_campuses_by_enrollment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_univer... do College Station, Orlando, Columbus, Miami, Gainesville and Minneapolis carry significant premium as far as cost of living? Miami might, but it seems like it’s more due to the beach proximity and tourism industry than FIU.
protomyth 8y ago
It would have an interesting affect on the next college community that refuses to allow building permits. It would very much be like these pro-sports teams in the US and how they treat cities. It could really go either way, but I guess it works for the NFL.
true_tuna 8y ago
Why not just permit sufficient housing on campus? It’s not like there’s a lack of space. Take a virtual tour of the campus or look at an areal view. You could fit 3k new housing units into a thousand different empty spots on campus. The reason they can’t build is they’re being blocked. The reason they’re being blocked is the same reason there’s a housing crisis in the whole Bay Area. We’ve made it really easy to block new construction and really hard to build.

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.