Cal Poly housing a record number of students on campus this year. Here’s how

More students are expected to be living on Cal Poly’s campus this fall than ever before in its history.

According to Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier, Cal Poly will welcome an estimated 8,314 students to on-campus housing this week — “the most in the university’s history,” he said. That’s about 200 more than the approximately 8,100 students who were living on campus last fall.

Move-in for the San Luis Obispo university began on Tuesday and Wednesday with new students, and will continue at the end of the week with returning students.

Lazier said the number of those living on-campus will likely be higher this year because the university has expanded the number of available beds “based on demand and enrollment.” He said some rooms have been designed for triple-capacity or more, as needed.

Fremont Hall will also be back online this fall after not being used for several years, he added, which will add even more beds. A mudslide in February 2017 and continuing instability in the hillside above the building caused it to be closed for nearly five years.

“This is the latest step in Cal Poly’s ongoing commitment to house more students on campus,” Lazier wrote in an email to The Tribune. “Cal Poly’s already is the largest housing program in the CSU.”

Lazier said the university has invested more than half a billion dollars into student housing facilities since 2000, which nearly tripled its student occupancy over that time.

“In that time, Cal Poly has grown on-campus housing at a rate faster than enrollment growth,” he added.

Cal Poly is also “actively planning” to keep growing its on-campus student housing capacity, Lazier said, with a goal to house 65% of its student body — roughly 15,000 students — on campus. Current project plans would add an additional 2,800 new beds to campus by 2032, he said.

An official count of how many students are living on-campus will not be available until mid-October.

This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 5:30 AM.

Kaytlyn Leslie

The Tribune

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Kaytlyn Leslie writes about business and development for The San Luis Obispo Tribune. Hailing from Nipomo, she also covers city governments and happenings in San Luis Obispo. She joined The Tribune in 2013 after graduating from Cal Poly with her journalism degree.