When the University informed resident advisors (RAs) that they may be temporarily sharing a room with incoming freshmen, it all but confirmed that the University was dealing with a housing shortage. Saddling RAs with unexpected roommates is just one of the measures the University took to try and combat the situation, which was created by several months of compounding uncertainties. 

“It’s a complicated story of how we got to this point,” said Chris Axtman-Barker, Associate Director of Communications and Marketing for University Housing. “We had a great returning number of students from last year, but we had more than sufficient openings remaining for first-year class until things started to operate a little bit unpredictably.”

Despite a larger than usual number of students returning to the dorms in sophomore or upper classes, Axtman-Barker explained most students made that decision in Fall 2023, months before incoming freshmen begin choosing their halls.

“Our return number is done before we start having reliable, significant information about what the next class is gonna look like,” Axtman-Barker said. 

Early complications became visible in March, when, in typical years, the University would extend financial aid offers to students. However this year, March came and went without prospective students having information regarding financial aid. 

“One issue all universities faced was the federal government’s delay in implementing the new FAFSA process,” said Allison Vance, director of messaging for strategic communications and marketing, via email. “This pushed the entire admissions, financial aid and housing process timeline.”

Typically, the FAFSA form, which determines students’ eligibility for financial aid, is made available on Oct. 1. This year, it opened on Jan. 1. 

Not only was the accessibility of the FAFSA delayed, but universities also faced delays in receiving accurate information from the form. 

“The Department of Education had a bunch of data errors with student financial aid with the outputs of the FAFSA,” Axtman-Barker said. “Those had to be corrected and then resent. That delayed the ability of financial aid offices across the country, including our own at the University of Illinois, to be able to provide financial aid to students.”

As a result, financial aid offers were not extended until April 19, over a month later than usual. This pushed back the acceptance deadline from May 1 to May 15, which in turn pushed the priority housing deadline from May 15 to May 22. 

According to Michelle Trame, director of student financial aid, even with the delayed process, the University still offered financial aid before many other schools. Being one of the first to do so may have actually contributed to the next problem: predicting the size of the incoming class.

The number of students who accept their offers and attend the University is known as the yield rate, a rate that was made increasingly difficult to calculate this year. 

“It’s difficult to know exactly how our student financial aid timeline affected our yield, but it could be related to us being able to get aid notifications out earlier than other schools,” Trame said via Vance’s correspondence. “It’s possible students made decisions based on information available to them at the time and accepted our admissions offers instead of waiting for another school’s financial aid offer to arrive.” 

The FAFSA wasn’t the only thing that threw a wrench in yield prediction either. Vance explained multiple additional factors went against the trends of recent years, further contributing to an underestimation of the incoming class size. 

One was an uncharacteristically high yield of non-resident students who accepted their offers. Another was a low level of what the University describes as “summer melt,” the number of students who accept their admission but subsequently change their minds.

“Summer melt is a factor we always account for when planning for the incoming class, and in past years, summer melt has been much higher,” Vance said.

All of these factors came to a head just a couple of days before students were able to start choosing their rooms when the University realized that they had made a significant underestimation. 

“There’s this thread of unpredictability that’s been happening with very little time for University staff to react,” Axtam-Barker said. “And I say this to provide context for the things that we did next. We went to really maximize space in our own capacity to encourage cancellations as quickly as possible.”

Not getting the results they wanted by simply asking, the University began to offer financial incentives for those willing to cancel their housing contracts in the form of $2,000 credited to a student’s account and 100 free meals. 

The $2,000 figure was decided as a mark where the University thought students would be able to pay for a security deposit and up to two months of rent for a mid-tier apartment in the area. 

“I canceled it mostly for the benefits and because apartments are generally cheaper than the University and a meal plan,” said Ella Trevillian, a sophomore in LAS, via email. 

Trevillian was originally slated to return to FAR Trelease for another year before deciding to take the University up on their offer to cancel her housing contract. Though the move did cut some costs, Trevillian wasn’t enthusiastic about every part of the deal.

“I don’t think the $2,000 was fair because I didn’t decide where they went,” Trevillian said. “It was less adding $2,000 to things I could do and more taking 2,000 away from the cost of tuition.” 

Axtman-Barker admitted that University Housing couldn’t directly give students money, so crediting student accounts was the next best thing. Despite this workaround, it still had its caveats. 

“Unfortunately, I already had loans and such, so I didn’t even receive the full $2,000,” Trevillian said. Though the financial side of the deal fell short for Trevillian, she was pleased with the sustenance side. 

“The meal plans, however, I feel is a pretty good deal,” Trevillian added. “I will be living far from campus, but it gives me easier access to food while I’m between classes.” 

Trevillian’s newfound distance from campus is yet another unintended side-effect of the situation. The most sought-after apartment locations on campus often begin to fill many months before the start of the academic year. Now, with the Fall semester looming, Trevillian had her work cut out for her to find a new place in time. 

“Searching for an apartment this close to the school year was difficult,” Trevillian said. “There never really is an ideal apartment on campus, but most of the acceptable ones weren’t available.” 

New roommates in a new place far from class is not necessarily a dream scenario, but Trevillian doesn’t seem too disheartened. “It’s far from perfect, but on a rushed time schedule, it will do just fine,” Trevillian concluded. 

The University’s cancellation campaign has seen some success, with over 250 students canceling so far, all of whom received the $2,000 credit and free meals. Still, the cancellations weren’t enough, and more drastic measures were required to increase housing capacity. 

The University informed RAs on July 26 that some advisors would have a temporary first-year student roommate for the upcoming school year.

“Unfortunately, one of the most obvious answers is RAs are going to have to have a roommate because then we’re going to be able to add a lot of capacity, and we’re in a position where we’re pretty far under the amount of space that we need to house the incoming class,” Axtman-Barker said. “And we have to house everyone who is required to live with us.”

Most often, freshmen are required to live in University Housing. The incoming students of 2021 and 2023 both set records for the University’s largest freshman class, and all signs point heavily to 2024 doing so as well. Trevillian admitted that even last year, FAR dealt with overcrowding. So, as the incoming class shapes up to be even larger than ever, it begs the question of a more permanent solution to more student housing.

“We do have a plan for constructing new buildings, and that plan existed before any of this happened this summer with the housing shortage,” Axtman-Barker said.

These plans, however, are still years out, as the University still needs to determine how many rooms to add, finalize the location and build up enough money for the undertaking.

While long-term plans are in place, current students will have to make do with the measures unheard of in Axtman-Barker’s tenure — ones he understands are far from ideal.

“We know that this isn’t what people thought that they were getting in some cases, especially when it comes to our RAs, and we’re adding occupancy to their room, and we’re really sorry that that’s happening,” Axtman-Barker said. “We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it was completely necessary, but we’re still really sorry that it’s happening.”

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