Approximately three weeks before University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students are scheduled to begin moving into their dorms, a housing shortage has prompted the public, four-year university to offer incentives to returning students to cancel their housing contracts.
According to UIUC University Housing spokesperson Chris Axtman-Barker, “several hundred” students have opted to trade-in their campus housing contracts for an incentive package of $2,000 and 100 free meals that the university is continuing to offer eligible students for each cancellation.
“While we normally have a small number of contracted students without housing assignments in July, this year we have more students than normal without an assigned space,” Axtman-Barker, said in an emailed statement Monday.
Because first year students are guaranteed – and required to live in – UIUC housing, the incentive package is limited to returning residents and other students not required to live on campus.
“We are making these changes to support the critical first-year live-on experience – students who live with University Housing in their first year are 122% more likely to graduate than those who do not, ” said Axtman-Barker who added that UIUC is also modifying rooms, where square footage allows, to house more students.
Multiple factors sparked the shortage, he said. Regarding whether the housing deficit is due to the size of the incoming class, Axtman-Barker declined to comment, adding that official enrollment figures will be reported on the tenth day of class.
According to data reported by the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse Research Center,
Illinois college enrollment in the spring 2024 semester grew by 1%, compared to the spring of 2023. The increase came after five consecutive years of declining enrollment, since 2019.
Despite the “unusual” year, Axtman-Barker said University Housing will continue to provide a “transformative student supporting experience” and apologized to residents and their families for the confusion. “We hope the compensation helps put students in a better financial position to secure other living arrangements,” he said.