It's a traffic control issue, nothing more. Colleges are especially challenging because you basically have a pedestrian rush hour every hour. I can see making busy off-street paths pedestrian-only, particularly during class change. My alma mater closed the only road that cut through the campus perimeter loop; cars cutting through campus were causing problems for students.

I'm not familiar with SDSU, but if it's possible to stick to the actual roads, I'd probably do that. But it would be far better to establish bike paths of some sort as the students want, because bikes are such a popular mode of travel at colleges. UC Santa Barbara, if I recall, did a nice job of it.