A capitalist society can’t survive without the concept of supply and demand. When the newest version of anything like an iWhatnot hits the market, the price is in the clouds and doesn’t come back to Earth until the market is completely saturated with the desired product.
Supply and demand rules our world. It doesn’t matter if it’s gas to feed our car addiction, or a space to lay our heads for a few minutes between partying and cramming for a final — we are so there to buy that which is scarcest.
This phenomenon exists in our dollar culture because, if we don’t buy it, there are many in line and/or online that will.
That’s how it used to be with on-campus housing at Cal State Long Beach. If you didn’t get in early, you were placed on a waiting list longer than Rip Van Winkle’s beard. The waiting list once was so deep it seemed as if some applicants didn’t get rooms until after their own children were ready to graduate college.
Because of our current economic woes, though, that is no longer the case. As of last week, there were still about 400 beds available.
Students’ shortness of money is the main reason CSULB doesn’t have a waiting list this year. With the horrendous California State University fee increases, cuts to programs and fewer students being admitted, our landlord can barely compete with homeless shelters.
A lot of students supplement housing with financial aid. With the fee increases, doing so means making a choice of finding cheaper housing, taking an extra job, living at home, or foregoing textbooks and food.
New students pay $10,070 for a double room with a 12-meal plan. Returning students get a break and pay $7,620 for the same set up. Those plans are the same for on- and off-campus digs.
Such expenditures extend the concentric commuting zone outward — further locking CSULB into it’s “commuter campus” image.
We suspect there might not be many students complaining if they have to have a double-occupancy room to themselves. They surely won’t have to worry about snoring, farting or other disturbances, but the university should consider lowering the rent — at least temporarily until the economy recovers.
It would help to show the outside world that we have a robust campus life. It has to be better than watching bedbugs cannibalize each other.