Larch Hall (ISU photo)
A new residence hall won’t mean the end of Iowa State University’s struggle to house students on campus as the move-in process begins this week.
ISU is leasing apartments off-campus to house the overflow.. Lisa Ludoviko with ISU’s Department of Residence, says there were some 1,400 more students who requested housing than there were spaces.
“The new building that’s coming online is only going to be 784 spaces, so it will help us with about half of our capacity issues,” Ludoviko says. “We’ll still need to continue leasing bed spaces off-campus.” Ludoviko says discussions are underway but there are currently no plans to further expand student housing.
Even with the limited number of spots that have opened up, students are jumping at the opportunity to live on-campus. “Within the past ten days, we’ve probably had about 40 people come in to submit a housing contract, which is not what our trend would typically be,” she says. “We do definitely have people who are still out there and still looking for housing.”
ISU has experienced seven straight years of record enrollment and has struggled to keep up with the demand for student housing. Students at the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Iowa also return to campus this week. Classes begin next Monday, August 22nd.
(Thanks to Mary Khan, Iowa Public Radio)