Hacker News Reader

Comment by patient_zero | Hacker News Reader

My knee-jerk reaction: So a place that benefits from government guaranteed student loans and ever-higher tuition rates is asking the lowest paid (other than the adjuncts i suppose) to take on the burden of not only providing the education that the university profits from but also the room and board?

The article is short on details but I can't see this as anything other than a sad joke. If Santa Cruz is anything like a typical college town then there are buildings on campus or nearby that could be repurposed for this problem. Certainly there is money somewhere that could be used to purchase space (even though real-estate is at a premium) for this problem. After all, the University will have far more access to funds or loans.

However, that would come at a cost of the profits.

How myopic for them to even consider professors housing students to be an option.

View on HN

>If Santa Cruz is anything like a typical college town then there are buildings on campus or nearby that could be repurposed for this problem. Certainly there is money somewhere that could be used to purchase space (even though real-estate is at a premium) for this problem.

Campus dorms are thousands of students over original capacity. All the lounge areas are converted to bedrooms, double rooms became triples and quads etc. Due to a long-standing feud with the city UCSC also cannot purchase any property in town that will house students. They are further restricted in where they can build on campus by both geological natural features, student protests (eg. 2 year tree sit that held up building in the 2000s), and also general NIMBYism. You are totally right in characterizing the situation as a sad joke. If only these emails were the extent of it..

> the lowest paid (other than the adjuncts i suppose)

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of employees at UC SC who are paid a hell of a lot less than professor-rank academics.

Like cleaners, cooks, librarians, secretaries, security, maintenance staff.

Not that it matters in practice, but many if not all of them would be contacted out at most universities.

If I understand the situation correctly, at the UCs most workers are not contracted out and are rather a unionized public workforce see AFSCME.

"AFSCME Local 3299 is the University of California’s largest employee union, representing more than 24,000 employees at UC’s 10 campuses, five medical centers, numerous clinics, research laboratories and UC Hastings College of the Law." https://afscme3299.org/our_union/about_local_3299/

Fair enough

> asking the lowest paid (other than the adjuncts i suppose) to take on the burden of not only providing the education that the university profits from but also the room and board

I would hope the question that the faculty is asking is: Has the UCSC administration agreed to take any students into their homes?

it's not easy to grow the UCSC campus like that. There was an aggressive 25 year plan where they anticipated a campus multiple times the current size but it's not realistic to expect the town to accomodate it. It would also be super-unpopular to extensively develop the existing campus.

The students would pay rent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com