When the Class of 2015 arrived on campus last August, MU struggled to find housing for incoming freshman and returning students on campus. At a university scrambling for funds, an 83.6 percent acceptance rate can be a burden when it comes to practicalities like finding shelter for each of them. With an even bigger freshman class this year, it looks like the Department of Residential Life and the UM System Board of Curators are finally taking the hint — the Board of Curators approved the construction of a new residence hall June 23.
The new hall, tentatively titled Virginia Avenue South, will open in fall 2015, and Residential Life expects it to be filled immediately. With Johnston Hall and Mark Twain Hall undergoing renovation,s the need for a new residence hall has become more than obvious. All of these changes are part of the Residential Life Master Plan, which aims to better student living arrangements campus-wide. Since it was announced in 2001, the master plan has helped MU improve its student residence halls annually, and we acknowledge they have stuck to the plan and have helped students in the process.
The Division of Enrollment Management has estimated that 6,450 freshmen will enroll for the fall semester. It’s the third consecutive year the freshman class record has been broken. This after university officials [predicted enrollment would decrease over the next few years.](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2010/8/24/mu-breaks-records-overall-minority-enrollment/) Students have been calling on MU for years to either make additional accommodations for its growing population or decrease the number of students admitted. Will one new residence hall solve all of our problems? No. Will it be enough by the time it’s finished in 2015? Nope. But it’s something. And from Residential Life, it’s all we could ask for given our current financial situation.
The new hall will cost $28.4 million to build and will eventually house 330 students. We already have a class demanding much more than 330 spots, and by the time those rooms are available, the number could be even larger. But we also understand that’s the best that could happen with our funds. Yes, it would be nice to just cut enrollment, but then we might not have the funds to build residence halls. It’s good that Residential Life is doing this in the face of budget cuts from the state government.
One residence hall won’t be enough, though. If enrollment trends don’t change, we’ll likely have an even larger freshman class next year and for years to come. It’s not in Residential Life’s power to change those numbers, but it is its job to provide housing to every student. Despite outside challenges, we hope they continue to look for solutions to MU’s growing population problem.
