With UC Berkeley recently announcing the school will be starting the fall semester entirely online next month, students are now scrambling to decide if they should move back to the area for the school year.
Students who had signed up to live in on-campus housing have until Sunday to opt out. School officials said students who do choose to return to the dorms will get tested for the virus within 24 hours of moving in and be sequestered for up to 10 days, only leaving their rooms for meals and bathroom trips.
Masks and social distancing will be required and no one will have to share a room.
But for students who had planned to live off campus, changing those plans could turn out to be an expensive choice.
Because of Berkeley’s tight housing market, many students signed their leases for the upcoming semester before the coronavirus pandemic even hit.
"And then the shelter-in-place came along and they’re not sure what to do. And the question is, 'Am I stuck with this lease that I signed for the year?' And the short answer is yes," said Marc Lucia, director of Student Legal Services.
Lucia has been inundated with questions about housing. Cal officials are holding the first in a series of virtual campus conversation with experts this week to help students sort through those questions and their options for the upcoming year.
One option is to find someone else to take your place.
"Students are finding replacements and sub tenants, so the market for off campus housing for students has not vanished," he said. "It’s just really different, the dynamics are much different. It’s not impossible, but I will acknowledge it’s a lot more difficult."
Lucia advises anyone considering signing a new lease to make it month-to-month as the pandemic and health restrictions continue to change.
