The Waiting Game: Campus Housing Concerns Growing
By: Rylee Meadows
On Monday, March 17, a Fall 2025 housing update was sent out to students regarding housing availability for the next semester. Students who are no longer under the two-year residential agreement and not required to live on campus whether in residence halls or university operated apartments are being affected by the message sent by the housing department.
In February, the general housing application was offered to students to fill out. There was no public mention of the high demand for on-campus housing. Now, in March, the email is implying that there is no guarantee or answer to if certain students who are not under a specific agreement are eligible to receive on-campus housing for next semester.
Although most upperclassmen prepare themselves and consider off-campus housing, there was always that reassurance that if off-campus living was unavailable or costs were too high, university housing would be available as a fallback. “I knew that the University was going through renovations, and we were going to have a lot of new students coming in, but I never thought that I would be stuck in a position to decide whether to quickly jump into an apartment lease or sit on the waitlist where I might not even receive housing,” said Radford University sophomore, Carmen Glover.
Underclassmen were given the opportunity to select their rooms recently, as this is a requirement for incoming freshmen and sophomores to do, some students feel weird about having this seniority over upperclassmen. Freshman Aiden Talbot stated, “As an upcoming sophomore I never expected I would be prioritized over the upperclassmen, as I don’t have to worry about these issues. I feel disappointed for my friends who do. It’s scary to think about what is going to happen for the next years. Will I be in the same boat as the upperclassmen now when I am a junior here?”
Emails have been sent providing helpful options, giving students reassurance that more updates will be available from now to August and financial aid eligibility will still be available and applied for housing for next semester, but it is a waiting list, and students do not have an insight on if there is on-campus housing available as of right now. A waiting game or signing into a lease are the two options students who are affected by this change are dealing with currently, and high pressures of significant decisions are being put on students to choose what is best for them for the 2025 Fall Semester.
