Marketing professor Terrance Gabel's resignation letter struck a nerve among university recruiters pursuing out-of-state educators to balmy and pricey Southern California.
"One of my dreams was to own a home," Gabel wrote to Cal State Northridge administrators. "I will never do that here. In Missouri, I'll own a home next year."
Gabel, who left for Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., last semester after only two years at Northridge, might have stayed if a housing assistance program proposed by the California State University system had been in place. Chancellor Charles B. Reed is seeking $5 million and a corporate partner to help new faculty members buy homes in the state's most expensive locales, a list topped by the Bay Area, Northridge and Orange County.
Any assistance would reach Cal State Northridge at a time when median home prices in the San Fernando Valley are at an all-time high of $232,792 and when the university is bracing for a wave of openings because of faculty retirements. Entry level Cal State professors earn $45,000 a year.
"I underestimated the cost of buying a house in the San Fernando Valley," Gabel said recently. "I thought we'd make enough to save enough of a down payment. Before I left, I was told by several people who had been at the college for a long time that they'd leave, too, if they hadn't come when housing was affordable."
Not only are professors leaving for cheaper living but some are declining offers altogether. John Mason, Northridge's associate vice president for faculty affairs, said professors who turned down Cal State Northridge listed salary as the No. 1 reason in a survey of roughly two dozen professors who rejected jobs last year. The cost of housing was the next most frequent reason.
"I'm not sure the two [reasons] separate so neatly, because if the cost of living were lower, you wouldn't need a higher salary," Mason said.
About 78% of the rejecting recruits polled by department heads in the survey said they would have needed more money or cheaper housing to make the move to the San Fernando Valley. That number takes into account only those recruits who made it past the interview process, not those who spurned offers straightaway.
Despite the number of rejections, Northridge receives an average of 64 applications per open position and hires its first choice three out every four times, Mason said. But it's the out-of-state recruits unaware of West Coast home prices who are the hardest to attract.
