UC Santa Cruz to enroll more Californians in the fall

UC Santa Cruz announced it is expecting 650 more freshmen this fall than last year. Many current students are wondering where they will all live.

“As far as housing goes, that’s a very big crisis here,” said junior Tejaswini Cherukuri.

Because freshman are guaranteed housing, Cherukuri said she’s forced to live off campus where apartments are limited and rent is high.

“It’s very competitive because everything close to campus is in demand,” said Cherukuri.

The campus offered admission to 22,000 Californians this fall. That’s about 4,700 more than last year. The university said it’s all part of a system-wide push to accept more in-state students to UC schools.

“We are excited as a campus and as a system because we are going to be enrolling, as a UC system, 5,000 more California residents,” said Michael McCawley the director of admissions.

Because of the boost in enrollment, the campus has created more housing by adding 9,000 more beds.

“We also look at access to classes, access to advising. We want to make sure that students are still going to be able to graduate in a timely fashion,” said McCawley.

While housing is still a concern, students like Cherukuri said more students does have benefits.

“We will have more alumni so I think it’s a good thing for more people to be here,” said Cherukuri.

For fall 2017, campus leaders said they’re looking at building modular housing units to make room for more students.