Iowa universities stretching to house students

IOWA CITY - Having already connected with her residence hall roommate for the fall, incoming University of Iowa freshman Ashton Thompson said she recently was surprised to hear from a third would-be roomie.

Desperate times call for desperate measures as Iowa's public universities scramble to find living space for a growing body of students with growing interest to live on campus. The University of Iowa, with 700 first-year and transfer students still awaiting housing assignments, is converting double rooms to triples, leasing another apartment building, and limiting space for returning students.

Iowa State University, currently working to pare down a 186-student waitlist for campus housing, is converting its 53 memorial union hotel rooms into student housing and in recent years boosted capacity by adding apartment style beds and leasing off-campus apartment units.

All three of Iowa's public universities are committed to housing first-year and transfer students - at a minimum - and have seen those classes expanding.

Iowa State has seen nine consecutive years of growth, including seven straight years of record enrollment, and officials expect to do it again this fall - projecting a total enrollment of around 36,540, above the fall 2015 enrollment of 36,001.

UI has seen year-over-year increases of late, reporting a freshman class of 5,241 last fall - 575 more than in 2014 and the largest in school history. Officials expect to welcome another historic first-year class in August, anticipating a 500-student increase.

At the University of Northern Iowa, officials are projecting a third consecutive increase in first-year students, and freshmen housing contracts are up 5 percent compared to this date last year.

Board of Regents documents show UNI has room to grow, with 4,337 students filling 95 percent of its 4,557 available beds last fall. But UI and Iowa State have none - with both schools operating over capacity last fall and expected to do so again in the next academic year.

The institutions are racing to erect new residence halls that in 2017 would add 1,049 beds at UI and 784 beds at ISU. And UI officials are in the early stages of planning for another new residence hall near the athletics and medical campuses.

But, because none of that new housing will be ready for this fall's class, the growth is stressing their systems. Von Stange, assistant vice president for student life and senior director of University Housing and Dining, said more than 6,100 new and returning residence hall students have been assigned housing for the fall, and another 700 freshmen or transfer students still have to be placed.

The university closed its 'housing portal” June 1, and it's not keeping a waitlist. It did in the spring have about 500 returning students on a waitlist, but Stange said those folks either were placed in UI housing or found other off-campus accommodations.

'We are not planning to provide housing for any students who do not have a current housing application,” he said.

The UI housing capacity for the 2016 academic year is about 6,500, and officials expect to accommodate the overage - in part - through expanded housing. That involves converting residence hall lounge space into student rooms.

'We could place a max of nearly 300 students in expanded housing,” he said.

The university so far has held off on assigning students to expanded housing, as officials expect some cancellations. Stange said it's likely to happen considering the student population swell.

'(Expanded housing) is designed to be temporary in nature,” he said. 'But, more than likely, they might be in there longer than in previous years.”

Including some conversions made last year, UI Housing and Dining is transforming 300 double rooms to triples - mostly in Burge, Daum, and Stanley halls. Most of those conversions are occurring in 250-square-foot or larger rooms that originally were built to house three roommates but recently were used as doubles, Stange said.

Students being placed in converted triple rooms still are landing assignments based on 'living learning community” preferences. All UI students who live on campus are required to join a living learning community, which house students based on common interests - from academic pursuits to extracurricular endeavors, like cooking, photography, or movies.

Marina James, 19, will start at UI in the fall and lives in Mayflower with three other suitemates. But, she said, being part of the school's biggest ever freshman class doesn't bother her.

'I like it,” she said. 'It reassures me that I chose the right school - if so many others are attracted to it too.”