‘It’s a big removal of a barrier’: What housing at California’s community colleges looks like
When Vivian McFarland decided to enroll in Orange Coast College, a community college in Costa Mesa, the college’s on-campus housing complex, The Harbour, was a major factor.
Living on campus makes for an easier commute to class, said the graphic design major. And it’s been easier to make friends, by participating in dorm events like a recent ping-pong tournament.
“It’s actually a pretty nice environment with a lot of my peers, and just people the same age, going to the same classes,” McFarland said.
Busy dorms and student apartment complexes are hubs of campus life at four-year colleges throughout the state. Soon, residential campus life will be a reality at a growing number of California community college campuses as well. The state plans to spend $2.2 billion on student housing over three years, and a dozen community colleges have already been awarded construction grants totaling more than $500 million to build new dorms or expand existing ones.
The Harbour and another recently constructed student housing project at Imperial Valley College in El Centro offer a look into the future of student housing at the community college level. While the addition of affordable housing for these students can ease financial tension and provide a sense of community, colleges also must contend with concerns about safety, management accountability, and the need for other on-site services.
Twelve of the state’s community colleges already provide housing; most are in rural areas, and built dorms in the 1960s to serve students who couldn’t easily commute to class. But the new wave of campus housing projects is coming to urban and rural campuses alike, aiming to meet a different challenge: the skyrocketing cost of housing in California that is putting a squeeze on students’ wallets.
And demand for student housing at community colleges is only likely to grow: Another 70 colleges have been awarded smaller state grants to plan new projects, said California Community Colleges spokesperson Melissa Villarin.
Housing is a “critical need” for community college students, said Villarin, noting that a 2019 survey of community college students’ basic needs revealed that 60% of students in the prior year were housing insecure, and 19% were homeless.
“These needs, when unmet, easily and often lead to student crises and, without intervention, frequently force students to put their educational journeys on hold,” said Villarin.
A sense of community, but with challenges
At Orange Coast College, The Harbour offers students furnished apartments with monthly rents ranging from $1,099 per person for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit, with two students per room, to $2,249 a month for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom single occupancy unit. (Rates include utilities and amenities such as a business center, rooftop lounges and a community game room.) Touted by its developer as the first community college housing in Southern California, it opened in 2020 and is a public-private partnership, which means a private company, the Scion Group, markets, leases and operates the building.
The apartments opened at the height of the pandemic and at first were less than half occupied; the college offered some of the units to non-students. But occupancy grew as students returned to in-person learning and now stands at 98%, said Jamie Kammerman, Orange Coast College’s director of housing and residential education.
“We definitely have a very strong demand, and the demand exists across a number of students’ backgrounds,” Kammerman said. “We have local students within our district who are just seeking that residential on-campus experience at the community college (level).”
While some residents, like McFarland, consider the rents at The Harbour affordable when considering the state’s high cost of living, others disagreed.
“I live in a two-bedroom double occupancy, and it seems like the rent is pretty high considering the fact that I have three roommates, and one of them is in my room,” said Aisling Archdeacon, a first-year biology major. “Outside of The Harbour, I feel like I might be paying half the rent I am here.”
At $1,099 per person, the total rent on the two-bedroom Archdeacon shares with her roommates is more than $4,000. By comparison, the average rent for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment within one square mile of the campus is $2,980 per month, according to Zillow.
Kammerman said the college conducts annual price assessments to ensure that units rent at or below market rates, and about 10% of residents receive college stipends of $400-600 per month to help with the expense.
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