Overcrowding leaves students without residence hall rooms

Executive Director of Residential Programs and Services Patrick Connor said RPS is hopeful that the new Rose Avenue Residence Hall, opening in fall 2013, will prevent the previous situation of overcrowding in the dorms. Through this dorm, 440 new beds will be added to campus.

For the past 10 years, IU has required all first-year students to live on campus, unless they meet exemption requirements. At the start of the year, 10,876 students lived in residence halls and some of these students start out in lounges.

“When a student is placed in temporary accommodations they are provided some information about the potential length of their temporary assignments,” Connor said in an email. “This year based on our occupancy models and trends, we knew that we would be able to place all students with an initial temporary assignment into a permanent room within the first three weeks of classes. “

Connor said about one percent of students signed up to live in residence halls just don’t show up come fall.

“We find there are many students who fail to communicate with us about their change in plans and it is only when we call them after we have opened that they will confirm they are not planning to live on-campus,” Connor said.

It is at this point that students living in lounges take the unoccupied rooms. Students are also given a small cut in their room and board fees for living in lounges.

“Once a student receives a permanent assignment, they receive a 20 percent credit in their housing charges for the number of days they lived in temporary housing, calculated off the double room rate for the building they had been living in temporarily,” Connor said.

Sometimes students have to live in lounges for an entire semester. When this
occurs, Connor said the lounges are transformed to resemble a typical dorm room and they are also keyed solely for the students living in the lounges.

Connor said students are required to live on campus their first year to help them succeed.

“National data supported by on-campus numbers would indicated that at each year in school students who live on campus perform better than their off-campus cohort,” Connor said.