The Sentinel featured several articles, and Tom Honig’s commentary, in the Insight section of last Sunday’s paper regarding UCSC’s plan to increase enrollment to 21,000 by 2020. While the city is rightly concerned about the impact that influx of students is likely to have on our local community, people should know that the university is making decisions right now that will have a grave impact on all of us.

Over the past year, the university took over the operations of the campus’ dining services from an outside contractor. One very positive outcome of this move was to provide a living wage and UC benefits for about 200 dining-hall workers and their families, which is the reason students supported this move.

What the students (and possibly the administration) didn’t consider in supporting this socially correct move were the ramifications of increased costs for the food-services operation. The projected "budget shortfall" is nearly $2 million, which has largely been passed on to the students. Transfer and re-entry students are particularly hard-hit. Most of them are entirely self-supporting and incur major debt to get the quality education offered by UC. They work hard to get here and continue to work hard once they’re here; academically, they do extremely well, receiving honors in their majors at proportionately higher levels than four-year students.

The university benefits from the diverse life experience, work ethic and maturity this population brings to the campus community. I always encourage prospective transfer students to live on campus to take advantage of the many extracurricular activities that enhance their educational experience. The benefit of older students living in campus housing is appreciated by the administration as well. Mature students don’t require the judicial oversight that younger students do, and are generally considered a calming influence on the younger population.

However, the differences in age and life experience usually deter these students from living in dorms with 18-year-old frosh. Transfer and re-entry students typically prefer to live in single rooms in apartments with full kitchens where they can prepare their own meals and manage their own food budget.

Two weeks ago, the housing authorities revealed their plans to deal with the budget shortfall at the Kresge College Student Parliament meeting (Kresge is the only college at UCSC that consists solely of apartments — there is no dining hall). On-campus housing costs would go up campuswide, and in an effort to keep increases within the range of our nearest sister school, Berkeley, students living in apartments with full kitchens would be required to purchase a meal plan. For students living in single rooms in apartments, the overall increase is just under 20 percent.

Tuition at all UCs is going up at least 10 percent next year. Coupled with the huge increase in housing costs, students who still elect to transfer to UCSC will be much less likely to live on campus, no matter how much we encourage them to do so. Since the local housing market has leveled off somewhat in the past year or so, the discrepancy in cost between on- and off-campus housing will drive students downtown. This will drive rents skyward and we’ll soon return to the stranglehold the market had on renters just a couple of years ago.

I work as an adviser and program coordinator for transfer and re-entry students at UCSC, as well as being the parent of a newly admitted frosh for next fall. For someone like me, this is a double whammy.

UC employees receive no break in fees for our children to attend college here. In addition, UC employees have not seen a pay increase in two years and, with some of our fellow staff receiving pink slips, we’re not likely to see one anytime soon. As a middle-income working family, making ends meet in this highly expensive part of the world, we are caught between increasing college costs and decreasing financial aid. My daughter, who will probably attend UCSC next fall, will likely have to live at home; we simply can’t afford to send her to college and pay for her to live on campus. But what about families with hard-working, bright kids like ours, who don’t live down the street from a UC campus? They won’t be sending their kids to college, and I doubt our campus dining-hall workers will be able to send theirs either.

Claudia Parrish is an adviser and program coordinator for transfer and re-entry students at UCSC and the parent of a newly admitted student.