Returning students seeking on-campus housing may be waitlisted as a result of a large incoming freshman class taking priority.
Housing and Residence Life has set aside a larger-than-usual block of rooms for first-year students due to continued growth in projected freshmen enrollment, according to John Kosh, the communications director for university Auxiliary Services.
A guarantee that all freshmen will have on-campus dorms means there would be less availability for students returning to on-campus housing.
Hannah, a student in her first semester at University of Idaho, who asked for her last name not to be used, chose to live on campus again next semester for convenience. Now on a waiting list, she feels discouraged.
“It’s kind of gross. It’s kind of immoral. It’s scary to be a student, especially if you’re not from town,” she said on the decision to prioritize freshmen over upperclassmen.
Hannah said she received one initial email from Housing and Residence Life after she joined the housing waitlist. To her knowledge, she has not received further communication.
“I wish they pressed this problem a little bit more. I wish it was kind of a bigger deal to let us know,” Hannah said. “I feel kind of neglected because if I was in charge, I would be shoving this information down my students’ throats.”
Valentine Piere is another freshman planning to live on campus next year. They understand that freshmen are required to live on campus, but are nonetheless frustrated.
“It just sucks that (Housing is not) being accommodating towards other people as well,” Piere said. “(UI) honestly should just be taking in less freshmen if they can’t handle it. Nothing against freshmen, but the school could be making smarter choices.”
Like many students who live on campus, Piere benefited from the campus’ convenience and accessibility.
“I think there’s a lot of support built into being on campus,” said one RA, who asked not to be named due to Housing policy for giving interviews. “There’s (academic peer mentors), there’s just a lot of accessible support and resources available.”
Both Pierre and the RA secured rooms for next semester, but they each still had issues with the housing portal.
After logging on at 9 a.m. sharp on March 21, right when the housing portal opened, both students had to continually refresh the page until the bandwidth issue was mitigated and they could reserve rooms.
Even when they gained access to the portal, housing availability was limited.
“I was originally going to try to go to the LLCs, but that didn’t even show up as an option for me,” Piere said. Instead, they reserved a room in McConnell.
The resident assistant expressed concerns about people who were planning to renew rooms that are now blocked out for first-year use.
For some halls “you can’t renew because to renew means you’re stuck in a freshmen building,” the RA said. “You can’t do that. So you’re forced out of your room, but then you can’t find another room, because they all fill up too fast.”
Dean Kahler, the vice provost for Strategic Enrollment Management, attributes the increase in enrollment to campus-wide efforts.
“The colleges are all in, the auxiliary areas are all in – everybody on this campus,” Kahler said. “Everybody is on board with ‘we need to grow our enrollment.’ I think that team effort is important.”
Kahler said he has heard some concerns from returning students and their parents.
“The university is here to help them and we’re going to do everything we can,” Kahler said. “I think there’s going to have to be conversations with off-campus folks about, ‘what are the options?’ And ‘can we partner as a town-gown community even better to help serve those students?’”
Kahler expressed interest in working with other campus units, including ASUI, to provide information to students about resources available.
Kahler also mentioned that another housing option is the UI Greek system with availability in fraternities and sororities.
ASUI President Tanner McClain echoed this option.
“I went talking with presidents of IFC and Panhellenic and they had talked about this as well,” McClain said. “We need students to come over here because they are struggling on getting students to live in their chapters and to join Greek Life.”
He added that this is not the solution to figuring out the housing overflow, but that the university would need to build more housing, which will take time.
McClain has experience living in Targhee Hall when it was a dorm for students who tested positive for COVID-19. He said that having to live somewhere he wasn’t planning on living was hard.
“Especially for being a first-year college student getting away from home for the first time,” McClain said. “That’s an uncomfortable situation to be in, and we want to ensure students aren’t put in that situation.”
While freshmen can count on having dorms available to them, returning students may need to seek out alternative options.
Katie Hettinga can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @katie_hettinga