GRAD HOUSING CRISIS

plan to build living space for as many as 400 graduate students and 75 postdoctoral scholars, a new Graduate Student Housing Emergency Grant and an 8 percent increase in stipend instead of the projected 6.5 percent were announced by the university to address graduate students' frustration with the area's shortage of affordable housing.

The one-time crisis grant - from $100 to $1,000 - will be offered to doctoral and law students living off campus who find themselves facing immediate financial difficulties such as an impromptu rent increase. The stipend's raise was announced after more than 1,000 people rallied on May 28 and about 100 camped out in the Quad that night to demand more on-campus housing for graduate students. Provost Condoleezza Rice spoke to campers in the evening and again shortly before 8 a.m.

Plans for the new housing, which will be located in Escondido Village and the Manzanita Quad, include the building of 400 to 500 new spaces in low-rise, one-to-four-story units to replace older single-story apartments in the Village. The completion of the project will take two years after it receives approval from the Board of Trustees, Rice told the students. The short-term goal, however, is to get as many students on campus as possible, she said.

"The university depends on its graduate students. If we start losing them, we will all suffer," Rice said.

According to Housing Assignment Services, 883 graduate students who entered the lottery for on-campus housing this year were left unassigned. A

Housing Crisis (Plain text)

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