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College is increasingly unaffordable in California. Tuition isn’t the main problem

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College is increasingly unaffordable in California. Tuition isn’t the main problem


Students and families gather outside UC Berkeley’s Anchor House on Aug. 21, 2024 in Berkeley. Student housing is now the biggest line item for many attending the university. 

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

Autumn brings the return of students to campus — and, with them, inevitable chatter about rising education costs.

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration added to this chatter by proposing a “compact” that would require universities to freeze tuition for five years. This discourse, however, tends to overlook a crucial wrinkle: college is expensive, but at many universities, the main culprit isn’t tuition, it’s housing.

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At UC Berkeley, tuition is under $18,000 per year — far less than many private high schools in the Bay Area. Tuition for a high schooler at San Francisco’s Lick Wilmerding will set a family back more than $60,000 per year.

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Housing is where the cost of college really racks up.

For 2025-2026, UC Berkeley estimates its own annual room and board price at $22,000 — 20% more than the cost of taking a full course load. Students who want to live on campus thus face a total sticker price of about $40,000.

What families need to understand as they consider the college is that the so-called “cost of attendance,” which bundles tuition with room and board, is the price of proximity to campus culture.

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Lest we scoff at spending more than $80,000 over four years on room and board just to get “the college experience,” we should recall that campus culture is more than parties and football games. Being close to faculty and other students is often the catalyst for informal learning and relationship formation that smooth the path to employment, generate research ideas and build companies.

Living on or near campus is not just fun, it’s often foundational.

In 2009, for example, two Berkeley students started Alphabet Energy, which would go on to patent important thermoelectric technology. In 2017, two others founded Kiwi Campus, a delivery robot company. Covariant, a leading AI and robotics company, was founded by Berkeley professor Pieter Abbeel and his former students Peter Chen, Rocky Duan and Tianhau Zhang in 2017 as well.

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Stories like these are why Pitchbook ranks Berkeley number one in the world at spawning startups. (Sorry, Stanford.)

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Unfortunately, California’s traditional deference to local politics has made housing both on campus and near campus painfully scarce.

The $22,000 annual room and board bill keeps students out of campus housing, pushes up prices off campus, and prevents connections that could have otherwise sparked innovation. Across the UC system, opposition to new on-campus and off-campus housing has blocked enrollment expansion.

The most well-known example is the controversy over Berkeley’s People’s Park. Thanks to the obstructionist tools provided by the California Environmental Quality Act, local activists were able to stall UC’s plan for another 1,000 campus housing slots for years before the state Supreme Court finally cleared the way for construction in 2024. Meanwhile, nearby residents sued UCLA in 2018 to stop the construction of a tall housing complex near campus. While that building ultimately went up, it has fewer units than originally planned. And to this day, activists at UC Santa Cruz have stymied the building of what the school calls the Student Housing West project.

Using procedural veto points, often on dishonest environmental grounds, California activists have enacted a college housing blockade. The result is that our schools are smaller and more expensive, our students are more scattered and our scientific and technological progress is delayed.

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There is good news to report, though. A couple of years ago, the state legislature exempted campus housing projects paying union-negotiated wages and receiving a special environmental certification from CEQA. Amendments last year lowered barriers further. This year, the legislature cleared away the CEQA barriers to essentially all housing in existing urban areas, not just narrow categories like “student dorms on university-owned property built with union labor and certified as ‘super-green.’”

But clearing away procedural obstacles is only half the battle.

California also needs to ensure that local governments zone land for dense housing near universities. Again, progress is at hand. Last Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 79, a controversial measure that allows 4-8 story apartment buildings within a half mile of fixed transit stops, and Assembly Bill 893, which allows 4-6 story apartment buildings and student dorms within a half mile of UC, CSU and community college campuses.

Unfortunately, AB893 does not apply to parcels that cities have zoned for low-density residential housing. It also requires developers to pay union-negotiated “prevailing wages,” which are prohibitively costly in most markets. SB79 strikes a better balance. It establishes union-labor standards only for expensive high-rise projects. And it applies to all land in the target geographies (½ mile of transit), while giving cities flexibility to “reallocate the density” among the affected parcels. Local governments will be able to limit incursions on the status quo in neighborhoods where preservationist sentiment runs strongest, so long as the city allows commensurately greater density in other areas near transit.

Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.

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To supercharge college housing and enhance the agglomeration effects UC is so famous for, the state should treat student housing like the critical infrastructure that it is. Future legislatures should extend SB79 so that it covers a ring around every university. If it does so, California will make college more accessible and add to the creative ferment it facilitates.

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This is the true college experience — and its payoffs redound far beyond the campus.

Jordan McGillis (@jordanmcgillis) is a Novak Journalism Fellow. Christopher Elmendorf (@CSElmendorf) is a law professor at UC Davis.

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Suspected Northern California library shooter charged with murder, faces life in prison

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Suspected Northern California library shooter charged with murder, faces life in prison


OROVILLE — Bradley Scott Sayer was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and discharge of firearm with injury during his arraignment Thursday at the Butte County Superior Court.

Sayer, 18, is the suspect in the Chico library shooting on Monday in which two men were killed, and he could face life in prison. If convicted, Sayer is facing the highest penalty for capital murder with special circumstances, which would be life in prison without the possibility of parole. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, who is the prosecutor of the case, said the court is not seeking the death penalty.

Sayer was not given bail, as Ramsey said the court felt Sayer was “too dangerous.” Ramsey also said Sayer is on suicide watch in at the Butte County Jail.

“We felt that it would be too dangerous to let him go at this juncture,” Ramsey said. “He planned a mass shooting, and there’s no reason to believe that if he was let go, that he wouldn’t continue to do that.”

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During a press conference Thursday, June 25, 2026 in Oroville, California, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey addresses the series of events leading up to the shooting and honors the two people killed in a shooting at the Chico library on Monday. (Lexi Lynn/Enterprise-Record) 



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CA state senator physically, verbally harassed at pride parade for Israel stance | The Jerusalem Post

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CA state senator physically, verbally harassed at pride parade for Israel stance | The Jerusalem Post


California State Senator Scott Wiener was harassed for his stance on Gaza during the San Francisco Trans March on Friday, to the point where it was no longer safe for him to remain, Wiener said. 

A group of people were so “physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park,” Wiener stated, adding that this was the first time he did not participate in the march.

Wiener was surrounded by people who made statements about his “Israeli handlers, among many other inaccurate, extreme, and vile statements,” Wiener said.

“We f***ing hate you. You stopped being queer the moment you started supporting Israel,” one person yelled in a video later shared on social media.

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Wiener stated that while he has no objection to anyone disagreeing, opposing, or protesting him, the “harassment, including cornering me, touching me, or trying to physically bully me out of a public event, that crosses a line.” 

“In San Francisco, we’re better than that,” he added.

Mayor Daniel Lurie made a statement on X/Twitter condemning the harassment, calling the language used “targeted, hateful, and antisemitic.”

In San Francisco, we welcome disagreement and respectful dialogue around issues many of us feel passionately about – but we cannot allow harassment and threats of violence,” Lurie wrote.

The California State Senate Democratic Caucus also released a statement on X, condemning the hate Wiener received. 

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“The harassment and violence shown from yesterday’s march in San Francisco towards Senator Scott Wiener is unacceptable and must be called out,” the statement read.

The caucus also pointed to Wiener’s work on legislation “advancing the rights and protections for Transgender, Gender Expansive and Intersex people.”

“The CA Senate Democratic Caucus and CA LGBTQ Caucus jointly denounce the verbal harassment and attacks he experienced,” the statement said.





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At least 117 dead dogs found in search at California animal rescue accused of abuse, officials said

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At least 117 dead dogs found in search at California animal rescue accused of abuse, officials said


California authorities unearthed at least 117 dogs in “various states of decomposition” on Friday, many of which appeared to have been killed by gunshot, as part of an ongoing investigation into an animal rescue organization.

The bodies were discovered during a search of Miranda’s Rescue in Fortuna, California, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. Officials had been granted a warrant that included excavation of the property for evidence that dogs had been buried in “mass graves.”

The 117 canine remains were those found mostly intact at two sites, the sheriff’s office said. Nearly two dozen skulls, “hundreds” of bones, and 600 dog collars were also recovered on the property.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal thanked the law enforcement teams and forensic veterinarians who assisted in the recovery. In a statement, he noted that the investigation is “just getting started.”

“The determination all of these professionals showed while working through this horrific scene is something we will not forget,” Honsal said.

NBC News was not able to reach Shannon Miranda, the founder of Miranda’s Rescue, by phone on Sunday. She did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

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The sheriff’s office said in a news release last week that it had been contacted in April regarding allegations of fraud, animal abuse and animal cruelty at the rescue, and that the case had been assigned to the Major Crimes Division.

An initial search warrant was executed on May 1, at which time officials seized evidence related to the investigation. Investigators also determined that a “significant number” of animals surrendered to the rescue had not been accounted for.

Investigators search for animal remains while executing a second search warrant at Miranda's Rescue.
Investigators executing a second search warrant at Miranda’s Rescue, where 117 canine remains were found, in Fortuna, Calif. last week.Stephen Lam / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

A second search warrant, executed Thursday, led to the recovery of the canine remains.

Forensic veterinarians were able to examine 71 of the bodies on-site Thursday but did not have time to reach the remaining 46. A preliminary examination — including X-rays of the remains — found that “many of those animals showed evidence of bullet fragments.”

Investigators are working to identify dogs that were microchipped.

Other remains were found “in advanced stages of decomposition” and were deemed too severely deteriorated to be removed from their burial site, the sheriff’s office said.

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This investigation is expected to be lengthy, the sheriff’s office cautioned in a statement to the public.

“The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office understands the public’s desire for accountability and justice,” it said. “However, it is our responsibility to conduct a complete, impartial, and legally sound investigation while ensuring that the constitutional and legal rights of everyone involved are protected throughout the process.”

No charges were announced.

Miranda was not available for comment, but posted a statement on June 18 addressing “recent media coverage and online commentary,” on the rescue’s website. The statement described two incidents that had “drawn particular attention” both involving animals that were killed at the facility.

The first involved a dog that killed another animal and attacked a third; the second involved a dog that lunged at a stroller carrying a baby, according to the statement.

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“These were not decisions made lightly and were based on my responsibility to protect both the public and the animals in our care,” Miranda wrote.

The statement also described Miranda’s Rescue is a no-kill shelter, meaning animals are not euthanized simply to free up space, but acknowledged euthanasia is sometimes necessary.

“Whenever euthanasia has been necessary, I have notified local authorities in advance, even when told that reporting is not required,” Miranda wrote. “I believe it is important to maintain a clear record of these difficult decisions.”



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