Not too surprising given:
- Increasing campus enrollment to make room for increased numbers of students who want to attend a UC means more students looking for housing.
- Most UC campuses are in built up areas with already crowded housing and anti-development / anti-more-students NIMBYs who influence local politics.
- On-campus housing construction is always playing catch-up to increasing campus enrollment. There is often NIMBY opposition, but some high density housing proposals are controversial for non-NIMBY reasons (e.g. Munger Hall and UCSB).
- UC Merced where there is plenty of space is not desired by most of those who want to attend a UC.