The highest rents in the Bay: Berkeley student housing

UC Berkeley has a housing crisis. A recent survey found that 10% of students experience homelessness while studying at Cal and Berkeley has less on-campus housing than any other UC.  By not providing enough student housing, Berkeley is de facto asking students to look for housing in the notoriously expensive Bay Area rental market. Though Chancellor, Carol Christ, has made more housing one of her priorities, students are wondering why the university charges so much for the little on-campus housing they offer.

This story looks at what students get when they opt into on-campus housing— in one case, it’s a triple the size of a one-car garage. And what they pay for it—approximately  $5k/month. We also take a quick look at Craigslist to see what they could be doing with all that money. We won’t give it away, but they could be throwing some pretty sick parties.

On-campus housing has some benefits: it comes with amenities—like a meal plan—and accepts forms of financial aid that cannot be applied to private rentals. But is it worth the extra bucks? We’ll look at that and ask why the university charging so much for housing when so many of its students are struggling.