Many college students rely upon on-campus housing when attending college. This is a home away from home, especially for out of state students. After the first year, many college students move into apartment life or online classes, but there is still a large sum of Shockers that choose to stay at the residence halls. It’s convenient, and sometimes only being five minutes from my class is the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.
Despite the crucial role dorm life plays on college campuses, Wichita State University, when given the chance to expand upon the university with its master plan — a blueprint for the next 10 years of WSU —chose to not include any additions, renovations or changes to housing. The choice ignores the crisis of limited housing for on-campus students.
The Wichita State master plan is a plan designed to improve upon Wichita State’s campus to help ready it for future endeavors.
The master plan focuses on a variety of different changes being made to the university including a new NIAR building, renovating University Stadium (Cessna Stadium), but nothing about housing for students. Not a single renovation or construction project toward it.
Wichita State has been bragging about record high enrollment rates for the past four years, before the master plan had been submitted.
As of this year, WSU reported a “record high” of 17,700 students enrolled. Though all of those students aren’t full-time, on-campus students, that is still a lot of bodies to house. With all of those students needing housing, the campus chose to limit returning students to The Flats and take away The Suites. And this is because there isn’t enough room at The Suites.
The Suites offers 220 available beds, and The Flats offers 450 beds. That’s taking away 33% of available on-campus housing away from returning students. While Katie Austin, director of Housing and Residence Life, said this might change depending on how many students commit to The Suites. College students don’t usually have the luxury of being able to sit and wait to see if those dorms will be open.
I had planned on living at The Suites for my sophomore year and had to quickly figure out my new housing situation with my roommates. I was lucky in the fact that it worked out for me, but it won’t for everyone.
In the press release discussing the record high enrollment, President Richard Muma said, “It is a direct result of our relentless focus on access.”
What access?
If the dorms are being filled to the brink and to the point of excluding returning students, then there is not sufficient access on campus. Access would be campus adding another residence hall so students could reside on-campus and live in dorms instead of forking over money to an apartment far from their classes and burning through extra gas — if they even have a car.
While I am not saying new students are not deserving of housing, everyone should have access to live the on-campus life, without having to worry about housing’s limited space.
