HAYWARD -- With its mild weather, cosmopolitan ways and casual lifestyle, the Bay Area helps to lure young professors to Cal State Hayward.

But the area's expensive housing is the No. 1 reason prospective teachers and other staff turn down job offers to the hilltop campus, university officials said. If they come -- and they often do -- most don't stay for long.

Frank Martino, the university's provost and vice president of academic affairs, said hous-ing has chased away new teach-ers, especially in the past five years. Even in a tight job mar-ket, the university couldn't hire six new faculty members this year.

Martino doesn't know if housing was the reason the university could not fill these openings. But the Bay Area housing market can't compete with universities in most other parts of the country, he said.

Gloria Rodriguez took an entry-level professor job at Cal State Hayward, knowing she was stepping into an inflated real estate landscape. "It was a trade-off I was willing to make," she said, noting that she had left a buyers' market in El Paso, Texas.

Rodriguez, who trains teachers to be administrators, has family nearby. The higher cost of living, she said, is worth the easy trip to visit her mother in the San Joaquin Valley. But a professor who has a family to raise might face a tough time staying afloat, Rodriguez said.

"California, in general, has been a deterrent (for my colleagues)," she said.

Rita Liberti, assistant professor of kinesiology and physical education who moved here five years ago from the Midwest, had no personal ties at first.

"The first year, I really wondered what I was going to do. I also knew that there weren't many jobs in my field, so I had to work," said Liberti, who teaches courses that combine sports with history, philosophy and sociology.

As a doctoral student in Iowa, she made about $20,000 a year and plunked down $300 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

Her salary doubled here -- she was hired in 1998 at$41,000 a year -- but her rent rose by two-thirds. She moved into a similarly sized one-bedroom apartment off Industrial Boulevard in Hayward that fetched $880 a month. Within two years, the rent surpassed $1,100.

"Then to look at buying a home was outrageous. I couldn't imagine," she said.

In 2002, the cost of a median home in Hayward was $320,000, up $50,000 from the year before.

Liberti's annual salary is now $57,000, an increase that allows her to rent more comfortably, especially as rents continue to drop. But buying a house -- and not just a condominium -- on her own seems impossible, she said.

Her partner, with whom she now lives, makes Bay Area living possible.

"If you don't have someone who can help, it's nearly impossible," she said.

Arthurlene Towner, dean for the College of Education and Allied Studies, said the ones who stay usually have a two-income household or family keeping them here.

"If we can pay them $100,000 a year, it's not an issue," Towner said. "We can't pay that much more to make it enough."

As of this year, the salary of an entry-level professor depends on the college, the discipline and the given year in which an employee is hired.

The average salary paid throughout the CSU system to an entry-level professor is $56,304, depending on the discipline, as of this year. The highest salary is $74,583 for business and management, and the lowest is $49,119 for those in College of Business Letters.

The tenure-tracked professors without roots leave after the first year or so.

"They get tired of living hand to mouth," she said.

With about two-thirds of professors coming from within California, the university pays a price, Towner said.

"It wasn't that we settled for less," Towner said. "But the value added of a nationally diverse faculty has been sacrificed."

About two years ago, after the university realized it was losing good, young professors, President Norma Rees started working on solutions.

Cal State Hayward tried to secure federal support for faculty housing, but it didn't pan out, said Dick Metz, vice president of administration and business affairs.

The university also brokered a deal with banks. Academics could take advantage of a reduced mortgage rate -- a quarter of 1 percent lower.

"It was not enough to make it fruitful for them," he said, noting that saving for down payments on Bay Area homes still poses an obstacle.

So the university now is looking to build housing that professors either could own or rent for below-market value.

The university has proposed using some of its unused campus space to pitch rentals and other Caltrans-owned properties to build homes for purchase.

The proposed faculty hous-ing on campus is on the south side of Hayward Boulevard. Originally, the university also proposed building housing on the ridge below Grandview Avenue, raising the ire of neighbors who didn't want their view blocked. That part of the plan has been tabled.

One such parcel, west of campus, was to become part of the Foothill Freeway, which essentially died in a legal battle.

Caltrans is not free to sell it, but once it is, Cal State Hayward would like to snatch it up. Metz said he hoped the land titles could be transferred to the university, from one state agency to another. That's how Cal State acquired land for the Contra Costa campus.

The university also is eyeing another Caltrans site, north of Castro Valley Boulevard, which Metz said would be well-suited for single-family homes. In Concord, the university plans to build both rentals and homes to sell.

Rita Liberti said she wanted more help from the university in settling into her new home.

"If I would've gotten another offer, I probably would've left," she said. "It was frustrating seeing all the money go out the door."