My son just went through this and got super lucky to find a place, but out in Capitola.
UCSC's campus is absolutely massive with huge areas of unused, unforested land [1]. There is more than enough space for more dorms and apartment houses as well as the accompanying utility systems needed. If they're going to continue to increase enrollment, they need to bite the bullet and put up some goddamn buildings. They simply don't want to.
The university wants to build new student housing, but many people in the university and many locals don't. There are concrete plans to build housing for a few thousand additional students on campus, but the plans have been on hold for years as people oppose them for environmental and aesthetic reasons.
I think we both know how many legal and political levers can be brought to bear by large government institutions when they wish. This is a priority and the NIMBYs in this case are being absurd. In the 1950s Santa Cruz actively campaigned to have the campus there with widespread support from residents. They signed up for it and that huge chunk of land was granted with the idea of having plenty of space to have all the students on campus, and for future growth. The residents were repaid by the skyrocketing values of their homes. The current residents either grew up with that knowledge, or chose to move there despite it. The city can't just decide 60 years into its existence that they've changed their minds and want to limit the university's growth. That's what the plan was from the beginning.
Anyways, when the UC finally decides it has to be done, Santa Cruz will have little power to stop them short of an outright legal war. Like I said, they simply don't want to.
It's not enough to own the land and have the political permission from the relevant entity. You also need all kinds of legal permits before you can start construction. And each of those permits provides opportunities for people who don't like the project to sue you to delay or prevent the construction.
In my home country, those lawsuits are cheap and their outcomes are predictable, because they are handled by the administrative court system. The judges are not allowed to consider the substance of the argument. They can only determine if the decisions were made according to the proper processes. Matters of substance are left to politicans to decide.
Here in the US, the lawsuits are handled by civil courts, where judges have more latitude to choose which factors to consider. That makes the lawsuits more expensive and their outcomes unpredictable, which is a major reason why NIMBYism is so effective in the US.
UCSC's campus is absolutely massive with huge areas of unused, unforested land [1]. There is more than enough space for more dorms and apartment houses as well as the accompanying utility systems needed. If they're going to continue to increase enrollment, they need to bite the bullet and put up some goddamn buildings. They simply don't want to.
1. https://maps.app.goo.gl/qocsUGwbhcZaKbdX7