It is no secret that UC San Diego has been rapidly expanding the past few years. This fall semester, the state university has witnessed record enrollment, with more than 36,000 students currently in attendance. This is largely due to ongoing construction on undergraduate and graduate housing, ensuring students better options to live on campus. It is also a result of a decree that the UC San Diego see the enrollment of more than 10,000 students from California by the 2018-2019 school year. The increase in housing is a facet of the university’s “Long Range Development Plan,” which aims to house 50 percent of students on campus by 2020 as well. “This is a trend that we have seen continue over the past few years,” said Christine Clark, of UC San Diego communications. “I believe it is because we have been building more accommodations. We recently completed graduate housing projects on east campus.” The Mesa Nueva Graduate and Professional Student Housing was completed this past July, of which students are already inhabiting the building. There are many additional housing projects associated with this development plan, however, including the prospective North Torrey Pines Living and Learning Neighborhood, Nuevo East Graduate and Professional Student Housing and Nuevo West Graduate Student Housing. The North Torrey Pines Living and Learning neighborhood (a $627 million project in total) will be a 2,000-bed, 816,000-square-foot building, with 1,250 parking spaces. This project is slated for completion by 2020. Additionally, the Nuevo East Graduate and Professional Housing, of which construction is also scheduled to be completed by 2020, will be a 759,000-square-foot facility costing $252 million.
Finally, the Nuevo West Graduate Student Housing project will entail a 433,000-square-foot building with 1,200 attached parking spaces. This project will cost $178 million and should be available to house students in late 2019. UC San Diego’s increase in both undergraduate and graduate students differs from enrollment in the University of California school system for this fall, however.
According to a recent press release, “The number of California resident freshmen admitted to UC for fall 2017 reflected a 1.7 percent drop from fall 2016, when a historically large class was admitted in keeping with the three-year goal of enrolling 10,000 additional California undergraduates by fall 2018.”
Despite the minor drop at the collective University California system as a whole, school officials maintain that the inevitable growth will keep in character with UC San Diego. “We are pleased to welcome our dynamic new class of students to the campus community,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “With an unwavering commitment to enhance the student experience, we’ve developed new resources and opportunities to ensure our students are successful on campus and in their chosen fields, so they can go on to become alumni who will have a positive impact on our community and world.”