SAN MARCOS – Hard to believe, but in its entire history, Cal State San Marcos has never had a pillow fight.

It's now 14 years old, so the time is right.

There will be plenty of pillows around starting today, as San Marcos officially changes its identity as an all-commuter school when 469 students take up residence on campus in apartments called University Village.

Freshman Gina Beavers of Palm Springs, with her extensive picture-frame collection and inflatable pink Barbie chair, will be among the first residents in the $28 million campus apartments.

"I'm excited. I've been living in the desert so long, I just want to get out and try something new," said Beavers, who is 17 and undecided on a major.

Alison Brown of Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County is a freshman biology major who chose Cal State San Marcos in part because of the new housing in the northwest corner of the campus.

"We visited (Cal State) Fullerton and those dorms – they were just old. It was just your basic college, but not really homey. These places (at San Marcos) looked very nice," said Brown, who hopes for a career working with wild animals.

Rooms were assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. The new housing had almost 40 percent more applicants than rooms.

"I was right on it," Brown said. "Whenever they asked for any paperwork, I was there."

"We are delighted that so many people have decided to stay with us," housing manager Heather Singer said. Singer runs University Village for Allen & O'Hara Inc., the Tennessee company that built University Village.

The success of University Village is important for Cal State San Marcos and the California State University system. Officials said it is the only private housing of its kind in the 410,000-student system and the first local foray into the growing national trend in privatized college housing.

The unusual deal between the university and the developer works this way: Cal State San Marcos did not have to put any money down or go through the years-long bidding process with architects, builders and subcontractors to get its housing.

In exchange, the developer built the complex on land owned by the state and will manage and maintain the complex. Allen & O'Hara also will collect the estimated $3 million a year in rent from the students. After 30 years, the developer will turn over ownership of the apartments to the university.

The $28 million complex was paid with money from bonds issued by a nonprofit entity of the university.

Cal State San Marcos joins several universities and major developers in a field that analysts say is a more than a $500 million-a-year industry.

"The numbers are still small, but it's becoming more and more common," said Jack Collins of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International, which represents 900 higher-education institutions.

Cal State San Marcos has started small with its first on-campus housing, with fewer than 500 rooms for a growing student body topping 7,000.

Building traditional dorms would have been cheaper for students and allowed more of them to stay on campus. Dorm rooms are smaller and more could have been built in the complex.

But because Cal State San Marcos doesn't have dining halls, as Singer pointed out, converting from an all-commuter to a destination campus doesn't happen overnight.

Housing industry experts say apartment-style housing is appealing to students willing to pay more for the comforts of home, like full-sized refrigerators, dishwashers, stoves, couches, space and privacy.

The on-campus apartments have two or four bedrooms and about 1,100 square feet of living space. Students can share bedrooms or pay an additional fee for a private room with its own lock.

The complex features study lounges and common rooms reserved for speakers and special events. Then there's the big-screen TV room, with pinball machines and foosball tables – perennial college favorites.

Rent for the nine-month school year runs from $5,100 to $7,100 per person, which includes utilities, air conditioning, cable TV and multiple Internet ports.

In comparison, students at San Diego State University pay between $6,800 to $7,500 a year for university-operated housing, which ranges from dorms to apartments and includes meals. At the University of California San Diego, housing costs students about $7,300 a year, with a partial meal plan.

Sophomore Eileen Liston thinks the Cal State San Marcos apartments are a good deal, especially because she won't have to commute 45 minutes in traffic from her parents' house in Oceanside.

"I looked at apartments in the area, and when you think about your phone bill, electricity, Internet service, it was so expensive," said Liston, who studies political science and Spanish. "I like that I can wake up 10 minutes before class and put on flip-flops, and I'm there."

San Marcos' sister university, San Francisco State, was an early leader in privatizing after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake ruined its largest dormitory. After years of quandary, a company was hired to blow up the 15-story dorm and replace it with apartments.

"That was four years ago, and so far the experiment is working," administrator Don Scoble said.

But San Francisco State has found one downside of going into the apartment business: the economic uncertainty of market forces. After decades of students being squeezed by San Francisco's notoriously tight housing market, by 2000 there were plenty of off-campus apartments to compete, and the university apartments were no longer guaranteed full occupancy – an expensive problem.

The San Marcos university's experiment with privatization is more extensive than San Francisco's. Operation and maintenance of the San Marcos complex will be in private hands.

One of the problem spots is where the responsibility rests, Collins said.

"No matter who runs it or who is getting the rent, parents and students still consider it university housing, and that's where they go with their complaints," he said.

Privatization has led to some financial liability problems at other schools. At Tallahassee Community College in Florida, the developer of campus housing was indicted after absconding with student funds, leaving the college's nonprofit foundation to clean up the mess.

Universities like San Marcos that eventually take over their dorms and housing from developers also inherit maintenance costs.

"The private industry builds 15-year buildings, while universities generally aim for a 75-year life on their residence halls," Collins said. "We don't know if it's a good idea (privatizing) in the long run, because no one knows what the end looks like, in 10, 15, 20 years from now."

For Oceanside's Liston, plunging into the unknown is all part of the college adventure.

"They don't know what they're (Cal State) in for, and we don't know what we're in for," said Liston, who wonders what it will be like to share living quarters and a bathroom with women for the first time, after living only with brothers. "It will all work out."