Public-private partnerships and the political economy of student housing affordability

Across US universities, rising housing costs have intensified debates over affordability, equity, and institutional responsibility. Public-private partnerships have emerged as a dominant mechanism for expanding student housing, celebrated for delivering speed, scale, and fiscal relief. Yet their implications for affordability remain contested. This article draws on interviews with nineteen administrators at the University of California, Davis to examine how definitions of affordability are constructed and constrained within public-private partnership governance. Findings show that while public-private partnerships expanded supply, they also transferred authority to private developers and codified market-based definitions of affordability in contractual terms. Equity-centred understandings voiced by student-facing staff, rooted in students’ survival and persistence, lacked contractual recognition. Framed through a critical political economy perspective, the analysis argues that public-private partnerships are not neutral delivery tools but political projects that reproduce or resist inequities depending on how affordability is defined and enforced.