UCSC explores making changes to its unique college system model

UC Santa Cruz administrators are exploring whether to make changes to the school’s residential college system, which its founders based on Oxford and Cambridge universities when they established the campus in 1965. 

Undergraduates are placed into one of 10 distinctly themed colleges — small residential communities where students live and also take a course that aligns with the college’s philosophy. For many students, this structure provides them a smaller community and identity within the larger campus. For others, it’s merely where they lived as freshmen. 

Early this year, Interim Campus Provost Paul Koch announced the exploration project during a faculty meeting, saying after years of campus growth and change, he wanted to have a “large-scale faculty-wide conversation” to look at ways to update the college system. As the project lead, his goal at the end of a year of engagement and campus-wide surveys “is to offer the next provost a series of options for ways we might change the college system.” 

Koch told Lookout he wasn’t available for an interview but emailed a statement in response to questions about why the university was pursuing this now and what options administrators were considering. He said it’s “healthy and necessary” to regularly look at “whether our structures are best serving students,” and didn’t provide any details on what changes are on the table. 

“I hope we are considering all options, other than not having a residential college system at all, which I don’t believe matches our history or vision,” he wrote. He added that once he finishes serving as interim campus provost in the summer, he would pass on the gathered information to administrators who would then decide whether to continue the exploration phase or finalize options in the fall. 

Lookout talked to faculty members, lecturers and students, who had a mix of emotions in response to the idea of changing the college system. Some proponents of the system are concerned this project is in line with many shifts over the past several decades that have chipped away at the original model. Others think it is an attempt to reduce costs. 

The exploration into the college system is happening in the middle of the university’s scramble to address its structural deficit, which started in 2020. Despite efforts to reduce costs in recent years through layoffs, a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures, the university closed the 2025 fiscal year with a nearly $95 million deficit. Administrators project another $80 million deficit for 2026. 

Jeb Purucker, the campus representative for UC-AFT, the union that represents lecturers, said he and many other instructors were concerned about the project. Lecturers, who are hired for part-time and full-time work, teach the vast majority of courses taught in the colleges, while professors teach in academic departments, such as history. 

“There is just a general fear that everything that makes UCSC kind of unique and radical and utopian is potentially on the chopping block,” he said. “The university has just conditioned us to feel like everything that is valuable about this place could go away at any second.”

A brief history of the colleges

Among the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses, just UCSC and UC San Diego have college systems. The models differ slightly but have the same goal: creating small living and learning communities that build a sense of belonging and help young students feel less lost on a large campus. 

When UCSC was founded, the colleges were each led by a provost and had their own faculty teaching courses. At the same time, these faculty members were involved in “boards of study,” which eventually became academic departments. In the late 1970s, UCSC administrators began a yearslong reorganization that moved most academic operations from the colleges to the academic departments. 

Provost J. Herman Blake, who was the founding Oakes College provost, and Provost John Dizikes, who led Cowell College, criticized that early shift for altering what many considered a defining feature of the university, while others argued the colleges were outdated. Over time, more colleges were established, but without some of the original features. For example, Rachel Carson College was founded in 1972 with a provost but no provost residence was built — unlike the prior seven colleges. Provosts often host a range of campus events from dinners and student gatherings to faculty meetings.

This past year, the university decided that as the current provosts leave their posts, their residences will be phased out as provosts’ homes due to rising maintenance costs. The residences for Crown and Cowell colleges, whose provosts recently left their roles, are the first to be phased out. 

How students experience the colleges

Second-year Alina Benitez ranked Kresge College first when she was an incoming freshman. A friend of hers told her the dorms there were really nice, and she said the college’s theme of power and representation “resonated” with her. She enjoyed it so much that she is a resident assistant there this year. 

“It was nice to be able to make automatic connections, because I had been a little worried about being able to make friends,” she said. “It turned out way better than I hoped.”

Benitez thinks the dorm’s welcoming lounge spaces and taking the same college course with everyone else in the dorm — referred to as the core course — “really helped build community.” 

“Me and my roommates, we would settle in for the night and all together read our readings and talk about them before we talk about them in the core class,” she said. “So it was nice, all reading the same thing and being able to talk about it.”

She knows other people, though, such as her friend Anthony Tirado, who didn’t have an ideal experience or get into their top-ranked college: “The housing really, really makes or breaks your year.” 

Tirado, a second-year Porter College affiliate, chose Porter because he thought the art theme, “Life Is Short, Art Endures,” would be where he could easily build community, but he didn’t make many friends there and said the lack of lounge spaces made it difficult for students to engage.

“We didn’t know anyone’s names, it’s kind of sad,” he said. “So we didn’t really speak to anyone, or have any place to be together as a community. So I feel like that wasn’t what I expected.” 

Still, despite the downfalls of Porter College, Tirado said the shared identity and living experiences became “a reason to connect” for students. 

Tirado and Benitez both said the residential college system provides students with an immediate identity. They joked about each of the college’s nicknames, like “PortaPotty” for Porter’s smelly bathrooms. 

If the university were to eliminate the colleges, they said they would feel sad for students who didn’t get to experience them “because then, you’re just a student,” Tirado said.

Kylie Henrick, also a second-year Porter College affiliate, said she ranked Porter fifth or last on her rankings. She’s a double major in environmental science and environmental studies. 

“It was interesting to be around people that weren’t in my major group, just because Porter is more common for arts-based majors,” she said. “Outside of that, it just kind of was the place you live. … When I say I’m a Porter affiliate, it really doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Some faculty, lecturers hold out hope for more investment

Psychology professor Gina Langhout, a former Oakes provost, said she was “curious and anxious to learn more” about the exploration project when she heard about it earlier this year. 

“I would love to see us expand the first-year experience into a more robust, multi-quarter core course offering for all students,” she said, adding she’d like to better integrate transfer students into the colleges. She was a transfer student herself. 

Lecturer Joy Hagen, who taught the Rachel Carson core course for 19 years, said the colleges provide opportunity for student-led ideas and innovation. Rather than cuts to the colleges, she hopes for more investment, although she said she understands there’s a major budget shortfall in higher education generally, not just at UCSC. 

“It’s hard for me to see at this juncture a big reinvestment in the living-learning spaces of the colleges,” she said. “I can’t imagine real fixes without a resource investment. And right now, it’s hard for me to imagine that resource investment. Where would it come from?”

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