Cal Poly doubles freshman housing cost over the past decade

When students apply for housing, University Housing intentionally prioritizes the term residential learning community (RLC) to encourage student community rather than focusing on the building features or housing cost. Students can rank their top RLCs to live with others who share the same field of study, career aspirations or identity.

However, they are not given information about where they will be living until the RLC assignments are published in June, which also means they will not know their housing costs until that time, according to University Housing.

The cost of freshmen housing at Cal Poly has more than doubled in the last decade, with the most affordable option now topping $11,000 a year, according to a Mustang News analysis.

Most freshmen students are given a space to live in a residence hall, according to University Housing. Depending on how many students are admitted into each class, some first-year students may be housed in campus apartments such as Poly Canyon Village (PCV) or Cerro Vista, typically meant for second-year or transfer students.

During the 2017-18 academic year, the majority of students who lived in a triple room with two roommates in Yosemite, Sierra Madre towers, North or South Mountain, students paid $5,109 a year for housing, according to the University Housing website.

Now, nearly 10 years later, the cheapest option incoming freshmen have for housing cost has doubled. A student living in a yakʔitʸutʸu quintuple room, with four roommates, will pay close to $11,000 a year.

During the 2017-18 academic year, freshmen students paid at most $7,889 for a private room in a PCV apartment for the entire academic year, with amenities such as a kitchen shared with at most five other students and a room all to themselves.

yakʔitʸutʸu: Doubles to triples and quads to quints

When the yakʔitʸutʸu dorms opened in fall 2018, they offered double and quadruple rooms, meaning two students or four students could be assigned to rooms.

In the years following the opening, nearly all of the double rooms turned into triple rooms, with a lofted bed and an extra desk. In fall of 2023, five years after the dorms originally opened, all quadruple rooms were converted to quintuple rooms, placing five freshmen in each room.

Other residence halls

In contrast to the yakʔitʸutʸu dorm price fluctuations, the other freshmen residence halls stayed the same price as each other. Despite the other residence halls being constructed earlier, students still pay $11,290 to live in older accommodations with fewer amenities and two roommates.

Poly Canyon Village houses some freshman

A limited number of freshmen this year are living in PCV, for the first time since the 2017–18 academic year, according to the University Housing website. Throughout the years, Cal Poly’s campus housing website has maintained that some first-year students may be housed in campus apartments depending on enrollment.

This year is the first time since yakʔitʸutʸu opened that freshmen have been housed at PCV. Prior to the opening of the yakʔitʸutʸu dorms, freshmen in the 2017–18 school year had the option to live in private or double rooms, which would house six students in one apartment, with four rooms, according to the University Housing website.

However, PCV has tripled in price since the time when it was the most affordable option for freshmen. First-year students living in a PCV double in fall 2017 paid $4,645, and this year PCV double suite costs $13,414. The suites were remodeled since 2017.

The future of housing at Cal Poly

According to the University Housing website, the university plans to add 4000 new beds for student housing within the next 10 years. This should accommodate all first-year and second-year students to live on campus, with the additional goals of “ease existing demand, accommodate future enrollment growth, and address aging campus housing facilities.”

Cal Poly has not addressed how this additional student housing will affect prices of existing student housing or the expected prices of new housing, but has stated their grant program to support low-income students with housing will continue to increase by $1 million a year.

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