Housing Crisis Hits Home for College Students

[Celerity]

On or off campus, students stress over housing, especially in high-cost states.

https://prospect.org/2026/06/26/housing-crisis-hits-home-for-college-students/


Amherst, Massachusetts, is home to the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts, where over 60 percent of students live on campus. Credit: Ravneet Marwaha/iStock

The national housing crisis sets many college students up for failure before they can get their diplomas. On-campus dorm rooms can be pricey or, worse, substandard. Off-campus options aren’t always better. Rising market rents mean additional financial pressures and competition with individuals and families in a foundering economy. Multifamily housing production hasn’t kept up with demand, so moving from university housing to a private off-campus rental can be just as expensive. A 2023 National Multifamily Housing Council report found that local rents tend to track student housing rents: A 10 percent increase in market rents produced an 8 percent increase in rents in student housing. Moody’s 2024 third-quarter analysis of multifamily and student housing costs showed that over a two-year period, student housing rent growth surged in comparison to multifamily rent growth. Those costs have forced university and municipal officials to come to grips with the housing crises students face.

The on-campus housing crunch has forced the state university systems in Massachusetts and California, two of the most expensive states in the country, to take action. Amherst, Massachusetts, is home to the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts (UMass Amherst). Over 60 percent of students reside on campus, and a long-overdue housing redevelopment project is finally taking shape. Last month, UMass Amherst and American Campus Communities (ACC), one of the country’s largest developers of student housing, announced that they will work together on what they call a “comprehensive, long-range, and phased plan to modernize campus housing while maintaining affordability and exploring non-residential amenities to enhance the campus experience.” UMass Amherst officials also plan to redesign current housing options while keeping those accommodations open to on-campus students. They’ll also seek out ideas about these projects from students, faculty, governance groups, and other campus stakeholders starting this summer and continuing into the fall.

The Boston Globe has reported, however, that ACC’s acquisition by the private equity firm Blackstone has raised concerns about housing prices that can run higher than those for off-campus apartments. Students in ACC developments in Boston have complained about unexpected fees and subpar amenities. These moves are big steps up for the university, but they come too late for students who end up in undesirable living situations. This fall, rising sophomore Joshua Svirsky, chair of the Student Government Association’s undergraduate services committee, will be in a “forced triple,” a room originally designed for two students that now houses three. Svirsky explains that currently after a student’s first year of guaranteed housing, UMass Amherst uses a quasi-lottery system, based in part on how many semesters a student has lived on campus. This system, he says, provides almost no certainty for students who need to know as soon as possible where they’re going to live the following year, especially if they decide to move off campus. The median rent in Amherst is about $2,500 a month. “[With] a lot of off-campus housing, you need to sign a lease months in advance, because that stuff fills up really quick,” Svirsky says.

Off-campus housing issues put municipal officials right in the middle of student housing challenges. Amherst residents have petitioned the university to provide “significantly” more student housing, and some want town leaders to focus like a laser on providing homes for workers, families, and seniors, not students. Councilor-at-Large Mandi Jo Hanneke has served on the Amherst Town Council for nearly a decade and works on town-gown housing issues. She and two other town officials meet with university officials twice a year to work on joint projects. There has been some progress in monitoring off-campus apartments. Hanneke, who also serves as the council’s president, points to an updated rental inspection program that was re-established last fall. To protect students and other tenants from unscrupulous landlords, town officials will now perform random checks of rental units for potential code violations. But Amherst has more than 5,000 rental units, so it will take several years to complete the first series of inspections, Hanneke says.

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