TAMPA, Fla. — We’re just some weeks earlier than the beginning of lessons, and a few faculty college students are scrambling to find housing.
This comes as Tampa Bay space universities are seeing a file variety of college students making use of to stay on campus for quite a lot of causes.
“Unfortunately, we are having to turn away students, both returning students as well as new students to our campus,” mentioned Assistant Vice President of Housing and Residential Education, Ana Hernandez.
More than 7,400 college students will probably be residing on University of South Florida’s Tampa and St. Petersburg campuses, this upcoming college yr. It is essentially the most residential college students they’ve ever had.
“We are seeing incredible demand for on-campus housing. So much so, that we had to close our on-campus housing application in May. The first week in May this year,” Hernandez mentioned. “Last year we also had to close our application, but it wasn’t until July.”
Hernandez mentioned the elevated demand stems from college students wanting that conventional on-campus faculty expertise that they missed out on in the course of the pandemic. She additionally attributes it to inflation.
“Increased costs, especially in rent. I think that all comes into play as people are making their housing decisions. In the immediate off-campus market that we’re seeing, there’s been an increase from last year, between 7-20 percent,” she mentioned.
That is a further $200 to $1,000 a month a pupil may pay to stay off-campus. USF worldwide grad pupil Ege Uckan, doesn’t know the place he’s going to stay when fall semester begins on August 22.
“I was interested in on-campus of course but by the time I applied it was already full. It was March and they said we’re already at capacity.” I mentioned okay, let me strive for off-campus which was full as properly, ” Uckan mentioned.
Uckan is situated 1000’s of miles away in Turkey and he’s frantically searching for a room to hire close to USF.
“I’m trying to keep my options open, but there are not any options,” he mentioned.
Hernandez mentioned USF is offering college students with assets to the local market.
At the University of Tampa, they’re additionally seeing a surge of curiosity for on-campus housing. The college expects all 4,300 on-campus beds to be full this fall. UT not too long ago introduced plans to construct a brand new residence corridor that can home greater than 600 college students, to accommodate future housing demand.
In the meantime, many college students like Uckan worry they will not have a spot to sleep.
“I think I’m going to stay in a hostel, to see if I’m going to be able to find a place, which seems almost impossible,” Uckan mentioned.