With the freshman class increasing in number, there is a high demand of underclassmen and upperclassmen wanting to live on campus. The insufficient amount of on-campus housing opportunities at St. Edward’s University has caused many dorms to become overcrowded and has forced upperclassmen to look for housing elsewhere.

Sophomore Allison Ahlers was put in a difficult position after being put on the housing waiting list.

“I almost wasn’t able to come to school because my family didn’t have the money to afford an off-campus apartment,” Ahlers said.

Ahlers was listed 230 on the waiting list, her fate undetermined the entire summer. Finally, one week before move-in, Residence Life notified her of an opening.

“I was calling the school in the middle of the summer and they kept assuring me I would get a spot,” Ahlers said. “I hadn’t heard anything three weeks before school started so I started calling again and they said I had to look for an off-campus apartment. I found out I would be living on campus a week before school started through an email.”

Ahlers’ roommate, sophomore Isavannah Reyes, was going through the same struggle trying to find somewhere to live for her second year at St. Edward’s.

“In March when we applied for housing I applied for the last day and the only thing left was the apartments, which was fine for a while,” Reyes said. “Over the summer my parents and I began looking over the finances and realized we couldn’t do it because it’s really expensive.”

After realizing the severity of her financial situation, Reyes fought to find alternate housing on or off campus that could ease the financial burden.

“Then we called the school to get me on the waiting list; they were very ambiguous about it,” Reyes said. “I kept calling and they finally found me a spot three weeks before school started. I had already started looking at other apartments.”

Ahlers’ and Reyes’ financial situation mirrored that of many students who struggled to find affordable housing. Sophomore resident assistant Ana Avalos knows of cases where overcrowding caused students to be housed with a residence assistant.

“I luckily wasn’t affected, but I know some RAs were,” Avalos said. “We have a bigger room so some were given a temporary roommate; I was lucky enough not to.”

Upperclassmen are not the only group affected by the overcrowding.

Freshmen like Alexandra Maxwell had very little time to find housing they wanted before all spots were filled.

“I wanted to switch dorms because I found the East Hall dorms to be incredibly tiny and wanted to be closer to the center of campus,” Maxwell said. “However, I wasn’t able to switch because all the rooms were filled.”

Avalos understands Maxwell’s predicament. The lack of housing allows for minimal transfers between buildings and dorms.

“It’s been really stressful,” Avalos said. “Some parents want their children to live in a certain place and we can’t move them.”

The insufficient on-campus housing has caused attending and living at the university to be increasingly difficult for some students. With many students living off campus and the uncertainty of the waiting list, their housing situations for this and next semester are still undecided.

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