At the University of Michigan, students are not guaranteed housing after their freshman year on campus. Amid record-breaking enrollment numbers, many students are left to secure accommodations on their own. As the demand for student housing surpasses availability, the University has taken steps to address housing availability and affordability.
Student interest in the University remains at an all-time high, with undergraduate application volume increasing by nearly 35% from 64,972 in 2019 to 87,632 in 2023. Enrollment in 2023 increased by 8%, from 31,266 undergraduates in 2019 to 33,730.
The University has also invested in a $631 million student housing project on Central Campus, where Elbel Field once was, under their Campus Plan 2050. The project, currently under construction, aims to add 2,300 beds in its initial phase by fall 2026 and additional units in subsequent phases.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, Heather Guenther, director of communications for U-M Student Life provided data that indicated that while enrollment has increased, the total number of rentable beds on campus has remained stable over the past couple of years at 11,500.
In an email to The Daily, Director of Housing Rick Gibson said demand for student housing has continued to exceed supply.
“The level of demand from returning students fluctuates from year to year, as does our number of first-year students,” Gibson said. “For the past several years, demand has consistently outpaced the number of rooms available for our returning students. This year was no exception.”
Furniture, window locations and other architectural components influence the total number of students each space can house. Gibson said bed capacity numbers are dynamic.
“We constantly adjust the numbers of people we can house based on changing conditions,” Gibson said. “For example, spaces are taken offline for renovation, repair, used for isolation housing, or are redesignated at a lower occupancy rate to accommodate specific health needs.”
According to Guenther, all undergraduate, graduate and professional students, as well as residents with families, can apply for on-campus housing. U-M housing does not prioritize assignments based on financial need. Gibson said that after reserving rooms for residential staff and freshmen, students who applied for housing are assigned a bed based on random selection.
“Both first-year and returning students, within their respective housing process, who apply by the deadline are placed in random order,” Gibson said. “Michigan Housing first reserves spaces for incoming first-year students. Remaining beds are designated to returning residents and transfer students. For this upcoming fall 2024, we reserved about 7,500 spaces for first-year students, about 300 spaces for our ResStaff, which includes Resident Advisors and Diversity Peer Educators, about 200 spaces for transfer students and about 1,100 spaces for returning residents.”
With not enough supply to meet all demand, returning students are met with limited options during the housing selection process. For returning resident housing, more than 2,800 students apply for the approximately 1,100 available slots in returning resident housing, according to Gibson. In fall 2023, the University converted 40 student study lounges into student housing to meet the increased housing demand.
Many students have sought alternative solutions, such as co-op housing, renting from third-party landlords or participating in housing lotteries. Ann Arbor’s average rent price of $1,538 per month has led to its labeling as one of the least affordable cities to live in among Big Ten Conference peers, where median rent rivals that of major metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York City at $1,644 and $2,220 monthly, respectively.
To alleviate some of the strain, the Beyond The Diag program, the University’s off-campus housing and support program within the Dean of Students Office, works on providing housing information, support and resources for students.
Mark Simmonds, Beyond The Diag program manager, said students have requested more help from the Beyond the Diag program in the past few years.
“We have seen increasing engagement in our resources and events in the last several years,” Simmonds said. “Our most recent housing fair saw the highest attendance that we’ve ever had for that type of event. Likewise, website usage and engagement has been consistently strong and growing over the last few years.”
Rackham student Alex Kim said Ann Arbor’s high rent prices and the University’s control over employment and housing arrangements contributes to difficulties in finding housing.
“The student population is a captive market — we have no choice but to take whatever housing we can find, which puts landlords and housing companies at a disproportionate advantage,” Kim said. “Rents have skyrocketed in recent years as a result. … For grad students, Ann Arbor is kind of a company town — U of M is the biggest employer, we are employed by U-M, and if we live in university housing, our employer owns our housing.”
Daily Staff Reporter Emma Spring can be reached at sprinemm@umich.edu.