A University Reimagined: UC Santa Cruz and the Fight for COLA
In the summer of 2019, James* and his girlfriend packed their two dogs and all of their belongings into a car, and left their home state for a new life in Santa Cruz, California. James was about to embark on a PhD in social sciences. It had been almost impossible to find a place. For weeks they had combed Craigslist, Facebook, and the UC housing Listserv for a room they could afford. Nothing turned up.
“So, basically what we had to do was come out here and [we] literally drove overnight,” says James. “We tried to stay on the side of the road and got woken up by cops because it’s illegal everywhere in this county to camp unless you’re in a pay site that costs 35 bucks.”
His story sounds ripped from a Steinbeck novel, but it is reality for many current students at University of California, Santa Cruz, one of 10 in the public University of California system, where the pursuit of advanced degrees pushes people into increasingly precarious financial situations.
Nestled on the northern edge of the Monterrey Bay, Santa Cruz feels at once a haven from and a microcosm of California’s biggest socioeconomic trends. Both the university and downtown have long prohibited chain restaurants. The local anarchist info shop and pirate radio station are integral parts of the town’s social fabric. Much of the…