The decision by UC Davis to secure housing for future transfer students shows a positive shift by the university toward caring for the entire student body.
By securing housing agreements with Primero Grove, The Lexington and The Arbors, the university has guaranteed that it will be able to provide housing to incoming transfer students. Previously, UC Davis was the only UC campus that could not guarantee housing to this group.
Transfer students represent an important segment of any college campus population; they are cost effective for the university and add an essential perspective to the student body. By guaranteeing housing, UC Davis will attract an even higher quality of transfer student than it already does, which will benefit everyone.
By choosing to make deals with these particular apartment complexes, UC Davis has shown an honest effort to provide housing that is relatively close to campus – important factors when creating a comfortable environment for transfer students. This will also provide those students with something akin to the dorm experience, an essential part of college life.
As noted by student housing officials in the Apr. 15 article “UC Davis to guarantee transfer housing for 2009-2010 academic year,” this should also reduce the burden on transfer students who come to UC Davis from several hundred miles away and will no longer have to search for housing in Davis on their own.
While securing this housing from existing apartment complexes is only a stop-gap measure, it addresses a previously unmet need. The reduction in freshmen enrollment, in tandem with the completion of the West Village expansion at some time in the next few years, should guarantee that this arrangement will suffice in the short term and that there will be other, more palatable options in the long term.
