What USU’s plans to increase student enrollment mean for student housing
With plans to increase new student enrollment each year, Utah State University faces the challenge of continuing to provide housing resources for its students.
Katie Jo North, the executive director of new student enrollment at USU, said there is a 2% increase of growth each year in student enrollment statewide, with an exception in 2020 due to COVID-19.
North said as of fall 2022, enrollment was at just under 28,000, which includes all 30 locations of USU, as well as online.
The Office of Analysis, Assessment and Accreditation has enrollment summaries from 2018-2022, and according to these summaries, in fall of 2022, the Logan campus had the highest number of incoming students the university has ever seen.
Amanda DeRito, the university’s associate vice president for strategic communications, said by 2028, the university has a goal to have 30,000 students enrolled statewide.
“When we talk about increasing by 2,000 more students, that’s a statewide number. So we’re not saying we want to increase Logan enrollment by 2,000; the impacts will be spread across the state,” DeRito said.
The university determines the demographics of enrollment by looking at three specific goals. The first one is a head count, which determines the number of students a university can actually enroll.
The next goal is called net tuition revenue, or NTR. This determines how much tuition is brought into the university. North said the university has to find a balance between providing scholarships and tuition costs.
The third goal is to determine what each class looks like in terms of in and out-of-state students, high ability students, nonresidents, and underrepresented students.
However, there have been times when determining enrollment hasn’t been as straightforward.
North said one instance is when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lowered the age at which missionaries could start serving missions. She said when this happened, the university created a task force to look at how to help students with deferment processes.
When COVID-19 started affecting universities, North said task forces looked at ways to provide opportunities for different classes so that students could still attend.
“That’s what we do whenever we have a challenge like that. We look at the specific situation, bring the people in who need to be involved and figure out solutions. Sometimes those things provide us with more tools going forward,” DeRito said.
North said in 2020, the waiting list for on-campus housing became filled, and it has stayed that way until spring of 2023.
DeRito said it’s hard to know for sure why that it is, but the university guessed it was because they offered more resources to students during COVID-19.
When students needed to quarantine, the university provided food. DeRito said there was a certain appeal of living on campus because with an unsteady housing market in the private sector, university housing was stable.
Whit Milligan, the director of residence life at USU, said she thinks one reason the university saw the waitlist remain full after COVID-19 was because students were eager for normalcy after restrictions were lifted.
With plans to increase student enrollment each year, one might wonder how the university will continue to provide housing resources for its incoming students, and what they will do if waitlists fill up again.
DeRito said the proportion of students living on campus is measured by looking at enrollment and the number of on-campus beds that are filled.
As of fall 2022, roughly 20,000 students were studying at the Logan campus, with 4,500 living on campus, approximately 22%. DeRito said this proportion percentage has stayed in that range for at least the last few years.
USU relies on the private sector to house the rest of its students, and DeRito said the university is seeing housing facilities being built that will benefit students in the coming semesters.
She said when it comes to making investments in housing owned by USU, the university has to be careful because these investments are made with taxpayer money. She said it’s a long-term investment, and the university has to make sure that there is a need for housing they will actually be able to fill.
“Housing and our business services are looking at those options, trying to figure out what the best solution is, but I think it’s less clear when you look at all the numbers, and you have all the data to say, ‘Oh, we should just build more housing,’ because we don’t know if that’s actually a good investment five years down the road,” DeRito said.
Milligan said because on-campus housing doesn’t get any state funding, the university has to keep the revenue stream coming from rent, so they haven’t been able to demolish some current residence halls that need to be torn down yet.
“All that revenue has to be put into maintaining buildings, paying the staff, replacing roofs and boilers and buying furniture and carpet and all of that stuff,” Milligan said.
The housing department has a strategic housing plan, but it is not yet available to the public. DeRito said this plan focuses on maintaining and rebuilding current housing.
Right now, USU is working with a consultant on a housing needs study, and DeRito said the university should have results in the next few months.
To ensure spots for students in on-campus housing, North said the university implemented an enrollment deposit this year.
After paying a $200 deposit, students can then sign up for housing. North said the deposit just goes towards tuition, but this way, it shows commitment from students. She said the university hopes by doing this, the waitlist can be shortened because they won’t have students signing up for multiple housing areas and then dropping out at the last minute.
This past fall, the university opened another on-campus housing area called Canyon Crest, which added an additional 402 beds. The university also has a website with a list of resources for students living off campus at usu.edu/housing/off-campus/renter-education.
Through a text message interview, USU student Logan Huber said he had a love-hate relationship with living on campus. He lived in Summit Hall in 2017 and said he liked how he was able to make friends easily because he was constantly interacting with other students who also lived there.
Huber said the process of applying for student housing was relatively smooth.
“What I did like about the whole process is that you paid the whole rental portion with your tuition. Luckily I was not waitlisted because there was a cancellation, and that’s how I got into my room,” Huber said.
However, there were a few things he didn’t like during his experience with on-campus housing.
“The carpet was hard, the rooms were small and there was barely any storage. There were two half bathrooms, one had a sink and shower with some minimal storage, and the other bathroom had just a sink and a toilet. There was just very little space and hardly any sound barrier,” he said.
Milligan said that most conflicts people have with on-campus housing could be resolved by talking to somebody.
“We have some people who leave and say ‘I hated living on campus.’. Well, it’s not for everybody, but I’m like, ‘Did you tell anyone about it? Have you asked for help?’ The only person they told about it was their friends they’re complaining to about it,” Milligan said.
She said her staff is committed to taking action whether it be through reporting, moving the student, or having a meeting with housemates to ensure students have a positive experience with their housing situations.
“For me, students that want to be Aggies, I want to help them get here. That’s one of my main priorities. Whether it’s through admissions and scholarships, or housing or events that they come to, we want to make sure that they have a good experience, and if they want to be here, we’re going to provide those opportunities,” North said.
A complete list of on-campus student housing and additional resources can be found online at usu.edu/housing.
-Savannah.Burnard@usu.edu
Featured photo by Elise Gottling