Beds to be added to on-campus housing

Residential life officials have announced a plan to add more than 400 new on-campus beds for students, in response to increasing demand.

The plan involves turning single efficiency apartments into doubles, and some doubles into quads. The 800 students who take the newly configured apartments will save about $4,000 per year compared with current rates.

The arrangement also will allow the University to discontinue a lottery that for the past eight years has been used to allocate space in on-campus housing. The lottery has been unpopular with students.

“UConn students want to live on campus,” says Steven Kremer, director of the Department of Residential Life, “but they dread the lottery. This will help us alleviate that concern.”

The apartments being converted are located in the Hilltop and Charter Oak apartment complexes, where some of the best and largest apartments on campus exist, and in the Northwood apartment complex just off campus on North Eagleville Road.

“Even after adding a student to the apartments, the square footage per resident will remain above average compared with other residence halls on campus,” Kremer says. “We expect strong student demand for these apartments.”

Residential life staff are working one-on-one with the students who currently live in one of the apartments scheduled for conversion and are eligible to return. They will have a choice of staying in the converted residence at the lower rate and choosing a new roommate, or moving into single rooms elsewhere on campus.

With the addition of the 400 beds, UConn will become fourth in the nation in terms of the total number of students housed on campus. It continues to house the largest percentage of enrolled students in on-campus housing among public universities in the nation.

When the plan takes effect in August, UConn will have 12,371 beds available for an anticipated enrollment of about 16,000 undergraduates on the Storrs campus. Those not housed on campus may choose either to live in off-campus housing in the Storrs area or to commute from further away.

The Department of Residential Life also has simplified the housing rate structure, consolidating 17 different rental rates into five.