CSU commuter schools see high demand for on-campus housing as rents continue to rise

DORM LIFE AT Sacramento State University suited Sofia Gonzalez. Living on campus her first year, most classes were a 10-minute walk away. Most of her closest friends lived in the same residence hall. “Everything,” she said, was “right there.”

But this summer, as she prepared to start her sophomore year, friends who applied for university housing warned Gonzalez they had been placed on a wait list. Daunted by the limited supply of upperclassmen dorms — and most of all, the cost of on-campus rent — Gonzalez opted to try the private market instead. “There was nowhere I could live in my price range near campus,” said Gonzalez, a business and marketing major. She contemplated transferring to a community college or commuting two hours each way from her parents’ Bay Area home to Sacramento.