UCSD has 5,000 fewer students in dorms than forecast

SAN DIEGO — UC San Diego has 9,655 students living in campus housing this fall, a f igure that’s nearly 5,000 fewer than the campus has been projecting since the early days of the COVID- 19 pandemic.

The university also disclosed last week that it expects to lose about $ 200 million for 2020- 2021 as a result of the pandemic. The school had been saying the losses would range from $ 350 million to $ 450 million.

The huge cut in student housing represents a largely unpublicized effort to curb the spread of the virus. Campus housing executives weren’t available for comment, said Leslie Sepuka, a university spokeswoman.

UC San Diego began fall 2019 with 15,500 students living on campus, a figure that was expected to rise to 17,600 this year as new housing came online.

When the pandemic began to hit hard in the spring, the university adjusted its estimates to 14,500 students who would be living in campus housing in the fall.

By early September, UC San Diego shifted, saying it would have about 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students in housing this fall. The number ref lected further efforts to “de- densify” dorms in hopes of preventing the spread of COVID- 19.

The dorm population was 9,655 on Oct. 1, the university says.

UC San Diego also has said its COVID- 19 f inancial losses could total as much as $ 450 million, with nearly half of the costs affecting the UC San Diego Health system.

Sepuka said that the campus expects to have $ 140 million in unexpected costs in 2020- 21, and that the health system would take a $ 60- million hit in 2020. The total: $ 200 million.

“The earlier high- level estimates are no longer accurate because they were exactly that: estimates based on the best assumptions at the time,” Sepuka said in an email Thursday.

UC San Diego Health originally expected to lose $ 200 million alone. The estimate fell to $ 100 million, then to $ 60 million after the university received some government support.

“We have very good financial people. But this was a difficult situation, which made it hard to make estimates,” said Dr. David Brenner, vice chancellor for health sciences. “This is the first time we’ve ever had an estimate that was this far off.”

The university has fared much better in forecasting COVID- 19 infections. The school said in August that it expected 20 to 40 students in campus housing this fall would contract the virus. So far, the number of positive tests has been in that range.

The university also offers a cellphone- based app that notifies people if they’ve come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID- 19.