The Yield Conundrum:
Unraveling its Impact on the College Campus Housing Crisis
As if there weren’t enough factors to consider when choosing the right college for your child, the question of sufficient available housing for freshmen is another one that should not be overlooked. Students at colleges across the country have reported beds in what would otherwise have been common TV areas; others have told stories of 3-4 students being squeezed into doubles, and some freshmen have been housed in hotels instead of traditional dorms. Instead of being implied, some colleges now feel the need to explicitly state that they guarantee housing for freshman year, some even for all four years. The availability of affordable off-campus housing is also a serious problem at many colleges and universities, but that’s a topic for another article at another time. The ebb and flow of yield, the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll, becomes the compass guiding universities through this delicate balancing act.
Yield holds the key to understanding and addressing the current housing crisis on college campuses. As colleges strive to attract the most suitable candidates, they face the ongoing challenge of predicting the number of admitted students who will ultimately enroll. The delicate balance lies in achieving a high yield – enough to fill the seats and dormitories but not so high that it strains available housing capacity.
At UC San Diego, large numbers of students found themselves on a campus housing waiting list. According to the Union-Tribune, 2,343 students (1919 of which were undergraduates) were on housing lists for the fall quarter, a figure over 600 students higher than a similar bed shortage at UC-SD two years ago. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2021, unsuspecting students from the incoming freshman class were housed in a hotel, and the university found itself with too many freshmen and insufficient dorm capacity to house them all. As a result, applicants over the next couple of years have felt the brunt of the correction as UW-Madison deferred a record number of students so they could make a more accurate prediction of how many freshmen would ultimately attend.
On the other hand, lower-than-anticipated yield poses a different set of challenges. Empty dorm rooms translate to lost revenue, putting financial strain on universities and limiting their ability to invest in much-needed housing expansions or improvements. The cyclical nature of this challenge perpetuates the housing crisis, creating a ripple effect that resonates through successive academic years.
The fickle relationship between yield and housing shortages is a call for universities to refine their predictive enrollment strategies and invest in adaptable housing solutions that can flex with the ever-shifting tides of student enrollment. Then, college administrators can reshape the narrative and provide an atmosphere where students’ pursuit of knowledge is not marred by their fear of finding the next roof over their heads.