Libraries are closing, majors risk elimination and salaries are being cut. Yet, UCLA administrators are about to embark on an estimated $121 million construction project. UCLA plans to sell $110 million in bonds and tap into UCLA housing reserves accumulated from student housing fees to build new graduate housing. According to Ross Shideler, associate dean of the graduate division, the construction of 504 graduate housing studios is important in garnering new students.
Is it wise to spend so much money on an expensive complex that will strain both the university’s budget and grad students’ wallets? UCLA-owned graduate housing already costs more than most housing complexes in Westwood. One year in a Weyburn Terrace studio apartment costs about $13,000, while one year in a studio apartment elsewhere in Westwood can cost around only $8,400. Other University of California campuses, like UC San Diego, offer studio apartments for as low as $8,964 annually. Next year’s rates at UCLA are only going to go up, according to Pete Angelis, assistant vice chancellor for housing and hospitality services. Needless to say, the new complex won’t be much of an investment or an incentive if students can’t afford to live there.
Ronjaunee Chatterjee, a third-year English graduate student who lived at Weyburn Terrace for two years, said that while she was attracted to UCLA’s housing offer, her experience was not worth the high cost.
“It’s not priced low enough for graduate stipends and salaries,” she said. “It’s a big draw on paper to graduate students, but then you come here and you’re sorely disappointed.”
If any more money is to be invested in housing, it should be spent on improvement instead of expansion.
“It feels like an overgrown dorm for graduate students,” Chatterjee said. Personal circumstances kept her from moving out of Weyburn after her first year, although she would have liked to.
The new graduate complex comes in addition to the $375 million undergraduate residence hall project that aims to provide freshmen with four years of guaranteed housing and transfer students with two, as opposed to the current three-year and one-year guarantees, respectively. Financing for this project comes from a 30-year mortgage, part of which will be paid for by student housing fees.
However, three years of guaranteed student housing hasn’t proven to be very appealing. Suzanne Seplow, director of the Office of Residential Life, said last year that many students stay in UCLA housing for less than three years.
“For UCLA, it’s a culture change because for so long we only guaranteed one year of housing to first-year students. Then it was a two-year guarantee, and now it’s a three,” she said. “Folks get into the mindset that you stay for two years and then you move off.”
The significantly higher cost of dorm life probably has something to do with it, too.
Expensive housing is low on the prospective student’s list of priorities and even lower on the current student’s list. Consuming valuable dollars that could have been better spent on improving current housing and even academic programs seems a poor decision in light of the budget crisis. Students don’t expect their university to be able to build new buildings in difficult times, but they do expect, at the very least, that its libraries remain open.
E-mail Nijhawan at anijhawan@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.