EAST LANSING — Michigan State University freshmen and sophomores are typically prepared for the cramped living spaces designed for groups of two or four students. Those dorm rooms are considerably more crowded for nearly 500 students this year.
Karem Pegg is one of 476 students assigned to rooms that were already full. The 18-year-old environmental engineering major got his rooming assignment over the summer, and was told he’d have two roommates instead of one in a two-person room.
“I mean, it’s not ideal, but I have two really good roommates,” he said. “So I think given the circumstances, it turned out as best it could.”
Adding an extra student to a room, or what universities call “transitional housing,” is not new at MSU. But larger incoming class sizes increase the number of students who might have an additional roommate, at least for a little while, said Kat Cooper, chief communications officer for MSU’s Office of Student Life and Engagement.
MSU began mandating sophomores live on campus in the 2021-22 school year. Decades ago, the university required undergraduates to spend their first two years living on campus, but administrators waived it every year since the 1980s until four years ago.
Freshmen enrollment increased faster than overall undergraduate enrollment this spring across U.S. universities, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
What is transitional housing?
While every school structures their dorm rooms differently, MSU’s dorms are largely set up for two or four students. The 476 extra students are assigned as a third person to a double room, or a fifth person to a quad room.
Students who live in these rooms pay less in housing fees than students without the extra roommate. MSU charges incoming first-year students $5,188 for a spot in a dorm for the academic year, unless the room is overbooked. Pegg said he pays about $700 less because of his extra roommate.
Those charges are separate from a meal plan in the dorm cafeterias, which start at $7,376 a year for first-year students.
Transitional housing is common at large universities like MSU, and most of the schools in the Big 10 utilize it Cooper said.
For the 2024-25 school year, three residence halls are impacted: Wilson, Akers and Hubbard.
Some schools choose to rent out hotels for students to live in when their dorms are full, but that isn’t a realistic possibility for MSU, Cooper said.
Other schools take a different approach. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for example, offered students $2,000 to their university account and 100 meal tickets to cancel their housing contracts. The school also said it would temporarily bunk some resident advisers with roommates. RAs are on-site resources for residents and typically enjoy the perk of not having roommates.
“We want our kids on campus, especially when they’re first starting out,” she said. “A lot of hotels are way further away from campus than our dorms.”
MSU does have a hotel on campus, the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center, but it would be nearly impossible for students to live there, Cooper said.
“Those rooms are booked out a year in advance for MSU home football games,” Cooper said. “There’s no way we’d get enough space for all the students who would need a room.”
Why does it happen at MSU?
Transitional housing is not new at MSU, Cooper said.
In the fall of 2023, more than 40,000 undergraduates attended MSU, the largest number in the school’s history. Official counts haven’t been released for this academic year yet, but the number of students is expected to be on par with last year. Housing contract deadlines were also extended into June because of FAFSA delays. Another factor is the renovations taking place at Campbell Hall, which would typically house a couple hundred students.
Cooper said mandating sophomores also live on campus didn’t really have an impact on the amount of transitional housing needed, because more juniors and seniors moved off campus.
“I don’t think it has an impact on how much transitional housing we need to offer,” she said. “And this past year, fewer students tried to opt-out of the requirement.”
What do the rooms look like?
On MSU’s website, transitional housing rooms are described as having all the same services and amenities, and meet all safety codes. Typical double rooms have one bunk bed set, one lofted bed, three desks and chairs and one dresser. Typical quad rooms have one bunk bed set, three lofted beds, five desks and chairs and two dressers.
“There’s probably moments where it’s a little bit cramped,” freshman Mahdiya Zaman said. “But honestly, we’re not all in the room at the same time, unless at night and then we’re either studying or going to sleep.”
Zaman lives in transitional housing in Wilson, sharing a double room with an extra roommate. She’d planned to share a dorm with one of her roommates before they got to MSU, but didn’t expect the third roommate. She said they were told in July when they got their room assignments.
“I think we got lucky,” she said. “I bet there are some matches that didn’t work out as well.”
Do parents and students complain about it?
Although some students say the living situation isn’t ideal, MSU staff try to make it as smooth as possible, said Bryce Wilson, community director for Wilson Hall.
Students living in transitional housing moved in a day before the official move in day, and Cooper said this was to make it easier for students to get settled in.
Wilson said said more students and parents might feel more skeptical when they get their room assignments, but once they move in those concerns tend to go away.
“I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “We didn’t have any issues during move in or since then that I’m aware of.”
How long do students live in transitional housing?
Typically, the extra person in the room only stays until October, Cooper said. The transitional housing isn’t permanent, and most students are able to be moved into a two- or four-person room that has a vacancy within the first few weeks.
It’s common for some students to leave the university within the first month of classes, opening up spaces for the extra student in a room to move into. Wilson said that being able to fill these spaces ensures more students have access to higher education.
“Some kids come here, and realize college or higher education isn’t for them,” Wilson said. “Transitional housing is a way to make higher education more accessible for those who want it… This provides an potentially empty space to be filled.”
Days after students moved into their dorms earlier this month, Cooper’s office started tracking the students who decided to leave MSU. Usually, they don’t start until September, and Cooper said she hopes the earlier tracking reduces the time students live in transitional housing.
What happens to students who have to move?
Wilson said he’s talked to resident assistants in Wilson Hall to prepare them for students being moved into different rooms. After weeks of living with the same people, a room change can be difficult for some, especially when they’re new to campus.
“The first six weeks are prime time for setting students up for success,” he said. “So when we have students moving out of what they’ve gotten used to, we think ‘What extra connections can students receive to help them with this?'”
Students are usually moved to open spaces in the residence hall they started out the year in, or at least remain in the same neighborhood. If a student wants to move across campus to bunk with a friend, Wilson said school officials try to make that happen.
“We think this gives students a chance to make more friends and face a challenge they can overcome early on,” Cooper said. “It’s shown that people who overcome challenges feel more prepared to face future problems.”
Pegg said he plans to stay in touch with the roommate who’s moving out, and he’s glad he had the chance to meet him.
“I’ll like having more space,” he said. “And I think we’ll still be in contact with the one who’s leaving, so I think it’s all working out.”
USA Today reporter Zachary Schermele contributed. Contact Sarah Atwood at [email protected]. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State has nearly 500 more students in dorms than it has capacity
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