Orange County Register reported on August 31st that Cal State Long Beach will buy five acres now occupied by Brooks College and turn the site into desperately needed student housing. Long Beach State is the second largest campus in the California State University system and is the third largest in terms of enrollment. Despite of that, CSULB is only able to house fewer than half the freshmen who arrive each fall. By fall 2009, the campus expects to be able to house 700 more students each year at the Brooks College site, after the private vocational college closes in summer 2009. Some 200 CSULB students already live in the dorms at Brooks College. While the university will honor the college's lease, which expires in 2009, as dorm rooms become available, university students will be allowed to move into them.
Adding the soon-to-be-closed campus's residence halls to Long Beach State would bring to a total of 2,700 campus housing beds available for students.
Brooks College is well-known for offering courses in fashion design, fashion merchandising and computer animation. They are have not been accepting new enrollees. Their lease will expire in 2009.
"We are not buying the entity called Brooks College, we are just buying the land and buildings," said Robyn Mack, associate vice president div of admin and finance for Long Beach State.
"We have a tremendous waiting list of students who want to live on campus," CSULB President F. King Alexander said. "We have to improve that opportunity for them.
That is good news to California residents who may have children planning to enroll in SCULB in the next few years. More than half of the new Cal State students come from southern California.
Thank You for posting a comment on my blog. There are many who read, but few leave messages. It is important to know how the community feels about the issues that affect us. Most college cities have a designated area for groups such as fraternities and sororities. In Santa Barbara, the cops block off the streets on weekends because of the parties. (UCSB is a famous party school.) This keeps the noise and incidents in one area. The police know how to deal with it. Unfortunately we do not have that designation. Whenever it is brought up the powers that be shut it down. We have to face reality. Kids love to party. (We did the same when we were their age!) Why don't we let them do it in a controlled environment. The airport projects I will save for a later discussion. Would you like to write an article for that? We can publish it here. Thanks again!!
Posted by: Marie Kletke | February 03, 2008 at 12:32 PM
Long Beach State is for the most part a good neighbor, clean nice campus to walk in, ride bikes, and use the facilities. I suppose we are allies in the airport expansion fight as well. At the start of the semester, we have to deal with students parking on our street, which makes me sympathize with Belmont Shore residents. The big problem is college rental houses in the tract. I have one next door. I have had to shut down many parties by yelling and threatening police action. I am documenting every incident and plan to take the landlord to court if it gets too bad.
Posted by: LBfamily | February 01, 2008 at 02:30 PM