The housing situation at Bentley University seemed to be a bit unusual, different, or rough, but was it really as bad this year as students have made it out to be? According to US News, 73% of undergraduate students at Bentley University live on campus.
To answer this question we must first look at the admissions process. I spoke with the Executive Direction of Undergraduate Admissions, Ashley Battle, to get some answers in regards to how this Freshman class compares to past classes, and what to expect for future classes. According to Battle, “Last year we enrolled about 1100, and that would be our goal next year as well.”
She continues, “We planned to have a larger class. We were lucky enough that we got a little bit more enrollments than we were aiming for.”
Although it may seem that this year was much bigger than usual, for the past years, the enrollment rate has been surprisingly pretty steady. There are actually only 80 more students than last year.
So why is housing an issue then? Associate director of housing operations Jeff Funk shared that there are currently 1,050 beds for first years. Depending on how many first-years decide to live on campus, this may not be enough. This year it wasn’t.
An issue many first-year students have faced this year is getting stuck in a forced triple where three people live in a room designed for two. Having two roommates isn’t an issue, but the lack of space is. However, the triples aren’t new and were not a solution to accommodate additional students this year. Assistant Director of the First-Year area Brendan O’Connor says, “We haven’t had to change any of our structure. Summer of 2021 we expanded some of our triples to be able to accommodate more students, but we haven’t had any changes since then.”
Well, then what was the solution? To get to the bottom of this, I spoke with Assistant Director of the Suites Area Alexzandria Matos. She explained, “We housed everyone we could in our first-year buildings, and then we had to place some people (around 100 students) in Kresge.”
Besides this year, “there’s been one other year, 2021 maybe, [which] was the first year that we had first-years living in the suites. Then, we took a little break, and then we added them back in this year.”
It seems the problem is not that they need to admit more people, but that the amount of housing to students ratio is off. Although this isn’t a very recent issue, the University might also want to consider improving the housing experience for students by adding additional rooms instead of just sticking additional furniture into pre-existing doubles. There has continuously been an increase in the price housing yet square footage hasn’t changed.
Looking to the future, Battle explains, “The admit rate last year will likely be the same going forward unless we have any major change in the market.” However, whether the housing situation will be similar next year, Matos says, “It’s about six months too early to tell what next year will look like.”
Additionally, for upperclass students, Funk says, “[the number of beds] will increase slightly next year once the Waverley Oaks apartments are available. This will be the first time in many years that a new building has been added to our housing options.”
However, according to Plexxus.com, the last First-Year building to be built was Miller hall almost half a century ago in 1979, so it’s probably about time they add another one.
Considering many other colleges are facing similar issues with housing, it seems to be a collegiate issue, and not just Bentley alone. However, maybe instead of renovating the Adamian building, the University should focus on building more dorms.
