I know SDSU, SLO, Chico, and maybe Sac have good residential experience. But any others? We are Nor Cal and S26 wants the whole college experience, living on campus, making new friends that way, intramurals, etc. I hear even Long Beach is mostly commuters? Or is it big enough to get the whole experience?
Thanks.
Sonoma State offers apartments where students can have their own bedroom and bathroom. I haven’t seen that layout elsewhere. Sonoma State is much smaller than the giant CSUs.
Cal Poly Pomona opened new dorms a few years ago that look nice. They remind me a little bit of the 6th College dorms at UCSD.
Humboldt certainly would fit the bill.
Thanks. Sonoma State WAY too close to home 
Will look at Pomona.
I know that Monterey Bay is classified as a residential college (vs. commuter), though I don’t know if it’s a suitcase school, meaning that a number of kids have a tendency to go home on the weekends.
From comments and research, these seem to be the Cal States with the most residential feel to them:
Look in each school’s common data set, section F1, for the percentage of frosh living in on-campus housing to get a proxy for residentiality.
From common data sets (2023-2024, or most recent available pre-COVID-19), section F1, and Impacted Undergraduate Majors and Universities, 2024-25 | CSU .
| Campus | % frosh in campus housing | Campus impaction |
|---|---|---|
| CPSLO | 99 | Y |
| CPH | 87 | N |
| CPP | 38 | Y |
| CSUC | 60 | N |
| CSULB | 28 | Y |
| CSUMB | NA | N |
| CSUSac | 31 | N |
| SDSU | 69 | Y |
| SJSU | 45 | Y |
| SSU | 86 | N |
Thanks for this! Very helpful.
I was curious about this NA. I’m guessing that the percent is actually pretty high, but I could not find a number. It looks like they have a two year on campus housing requirement for non local students, and their web page also states 52% living on campus (overall, not just frosh).
Both SDSU and CPSLO require 2 year on campus living, but the % frosh is 30% apart. So that means CPSLO requires even local students to live on campus for first two years, right?
I was reading in one of the SLO threads that it is different this year because of construction.
I do not know how the current situation might affect this thread’s OP who is thinking about their D26, and for SLO there are also other potential changes in the works such as spreading out students over a four quarter year… so it may be hard to predict SLO housing two years from now. SLO is definitely a residential CSU… but the housing situation itself is somewhat in flux.
Discussion about what locals are being offered starts here and is sprinkled throughout the rest of this thread:
CPSLO is in a low population density area, so even “local” students are more likely to be out of reasonable commuting range.