With some of the nation’s highest housing prices, UC Santa Barbara staff and faculty often struggle to secure affordable housing close to the University. This leads many to reside elsewhere, requiring long commutes.

Many UCSB staff and faculty reside elsewhere, requiring long commutes as far as 100 miles. Nexus file art.

The cost of living in Santa Barbara County is reported to be 54.7% more expensive than the national average, and 4.8% more expensive than the California average.

Meghan Zero, an undergraduate advisor for the global studies department, said that UCSB staff and faculty need to be compensated more to afford housing. When asked what changes the school or county should make to help staff afford viable housing, Zero emphasized that salaries need to be “quite higher.” 

“Salaries need to reflect the value that we provide to the community and to the campus. It’s unconscionable that I make the amount of money I make for the value I provide to the University as a whole,” Zero said.

As recently as November 2025, over 20,000 University of California staff in the University Professional and Technical Employees — Communications Workers of America Local 9119 union have organized strikes and protested for higher wages, including demonstrations on the UCSB campus. The UC compromised with a series of pay increases over the next few years. 

Political science professor Mehdi Haghighi currently resides in the “more affordable” San Fernando Valley, approximately 95 miles from campus, and commutes around four hours round-trip twice a week. Haghighi said that if given the opportunity to secure relatively affordable housing closer to the campus, he “would take it”. 

“We live in a country [where] education has never been a big priority, and is severely underfunded,” Haghighi said. “[I don’t] blame this institution or any other for not providing [me] with housing subsidies.” 

While professors might have an easier time securing housing than supporting staff, there is little university assistance to combat inflated prices in Santa Barbara. 

“We’re all pretty much on our own. There was a time when a professor asked us ‘Do you know about the specific staff apartment complex?’ and I was like, ‘No, I’ve never heard of that, it’s never been made known to me.’ Having looked into it, it’s got quite the waitlist. So functionally it’s not available to most people,” Zero said.

Additionally, Zero said she wishes there was more support for staff members other than professors.

“I’m pretty much happy where I live but there was definitely a period of time when we were looking for rentals where it was fascinating to see that there’s a lot of support for faculty [such as professors] that just doesn’t exist for [other] staff,” Zero said.

Annie Lamar, a professor in the classics department, said that faculty housing being unaffordable is “clearly linked” to the problem of housing in Santa Barbara,  not just at the University.

“Housing in this city is a chronic and complicated problem,” Lamar said. “They’re pretty transparent about your odds of getting an offer on a faculty house or on a faculty apartment, and the waitlist is long, but frankly, I think that the University would be right to focus on student housing for undergraduates and graduates more than faculty.”

A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the March 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.