CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND) – While all first-year students are required to live on campus at the University of Illinois, any year after that, they have to find their own housing. The University says they have had an influx of students wanting to live on campus beyond their first year.
“We had huge demand really for the last couple of years with students wanting to live on campus and wanting to live in the residence halls with university housing,” said Chris Axtman-Barker, Associate Director of Communications and Marketing for the University’s housing department. “And last year, our signup process had to be ended before it was scheduled to because of overwhelming interest.”
To fix this, the University launched a new lottery system. First, they set aside housing for first-year students who have to live on campus. Then those remaining rooms are provided to others interested through the lottery system. Students who do not get a room are put on a waiting list.
While freshman Addi Caile has already found a spot to live next year in her sorority house, she’s had several friends struggling to find other options off-campus.
“It’s just really expensive,” Caile said. “There’s not a lot of affordable options, which doesn’t make sense considering we’re at university, but there’s a lot of places. There’s a lot of different realtors, they’re just expensive.”
Caile said she was given one of the last spots in the housing lottery as a freshman and got stuck in a dorm building without air conditioning. It is one of the buildings set to be demolished soon and replaced with a larger facility.
“Taft and Van Doren Halls are going to come down in the next couple of years,” Axtman-Barker said. “And the new hall will be built in the place of those two buildings. The current capacity at Taft and Van Doren is around 400 students. This new hall will be 6-800 and also contain a 300-seat dining facility.”
Axtman-Barker is hoping the new lottery system and housing option will alleviate some of the stress for everyone to access housing.
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