Too many students: too little space

Overenrollment of first-year students spurred a CSUMB housing shortage and encouraged the campus to revise its housing development plans.

By: Josephine Luton

Josephine Luton|Gavilan Hall

An unexpected surge of freshmen enrollment left CSU Monterey Bay scrambling to find adequate housing for all its students earlier this year. With the anticipated rise of student enrollment from this point forward, a new housing plan is in the works, says the Director of Student Housing and Residential Life, Dr. W. Jeff Cooper. By Fall of 2026, the university plans to expand its residential housing by converting the current academic building, Gavilan Hall, into student housing.

Full housing capacity was reached at the beginning of the fall semester due to a 43 percent increase in the number of freshmen admitted from the fall semester 2023 to 2024, according to the CSUMB enrollment records. That’s 1,267 freshmen admitted in 2023 and 1,704 in 2024. Unfortunately, the campus was not originally built to house that many students and student residential placements were changed drastically to find room for everyone. Even the sophomore requirement of living on campus has been paused to make room for underclassmen.

How are current student residential areas affected by overenrollment?

Many first-year students were put into dorms in areas one and two, converted from doubles to triples, and triples to quads as a temporary housing solution, leaving students’ furniture and living areas feeling “extremely confined,” according to Anthony Luna, biology major and Resident Advisor of Yarrow Hall. These newly enrolled students were also placed in North Quad, Promontory, and East Campus, even though those spaces are reserved for upperclassmen. Luna explained how mixed-aged housing with students above and below 21 has caused numerous residential disagreements over topics like maturity level and controlled substances.

Next academic year, North Quad will only be available for the current freshman class, though it used to be available for all class years. Half of Promontory will also be given to rising sophomores, as first and second-year housing is more prioritized than upperclassmen, in order to increase the retention rate of sophomore students, according to Luna.

What is the university’s new plan to expand housing?

As of March 2025, CSUMB’s housing expansion plans are “very much in the early stages”, with intentions of renovating Gavilan Hall into a new residential building by the fall of 2026, according to Jeff Cooper. This building could house 160 new residents and promote engagement within the center of campus, along with amenities like the Fitness Center, World Theater, and University Center, which all lay on the same street as Gavilan Hall.

Before the building was renovated, it was campus housing, and most of the old furniture from previous residents is still stored there. However, Gavilan Hall currently holds the offices of a few academic employees, along with the studio for the local radio station 90.3 KAZU. These employees would have to be moved to a different office space, but the addition of more campus housing close to classrooms is vital at this stage of the university’s growth, said Cooper.

Josephine Luton|Gavilan Hall

A larger plan is also in the works, called the CSU Monterey Bay Master Plan Guideline, which estimates an increase of over 3,500 additional student beds and space for more than 7,000 enrolled students in the next ten years. The university strives to build at least six more residential neighborhoods similar to North Quad, reported Cooper, because that design is the most favored among students.

Gavilan Hall has never been a part of this plan, however, it is favored by the university because of the low renovation cost. Cooper explained that building new residential space along campus would cost students much more than their current tuition, and redeveloping a pre-existing building would put significantly less strain on students already dealing with rising tuition costs.