[jjav]

> UCSC problem because the university is expanding without building enough dormitories and relying on development in the city instead

This is the largest root cause of the problem.

Population of Santa Cruz is ~64K people. Enrollment in UCSC is nearly 20K. That's a lot of incoming students for a small town.

Combine with the geography of being surrounded by steep mountains and the ocean, there is very little area to the city.

City of Santa Cruz is ~8000 acres, all of it pretty much built already.

UCSC campus is ~2000 acres, a large part of it (couldn't find percentage) is forest and open land.

So while UCSC owns most of the undeveloped land in the area, they keep increasing enrollment but don't provide housing. Where are students going to go?

There should be a law that UCSC can only enroll as many students as they have housing for. They have plenty of land to build it.