The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

Get Involved with Housing Changes

In order to accomodate an ever-changing student body, student housing at Saint Louis University has taken on many manifestations over the last two centuries. A long time before the Village Apartments were built, students studied and slept on the fourth floor of DuBourg Hall. The Coronado building, across the street, houses students today. Twenty years ago, though, it was owned by SLU. More recently, students lived in the O’Brien House.

As we continue to change, so does the way that we live at SLU.

For many years, SLU was primarily a commuter school. On-campus housing wasn’t so important. But increasing enrollment of out-of-town students has changed that.

Today, housing is kind of a big deal.

As of last year, it is tied with the financing of academics. Two to three thousand dollars of last year’s incoming students’ merit scholarships is now dedicated to housing. The same applies to this year’s students. And so it will probably continue. If students cannot put this scholarship money to living on campus, they lose it.

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Eighty-eight percent of students receive merit scholarships. And around 40 percent of students live on campus.

But these numbers reflect only two classes who are affected by the scholarship-housing coupling. In future years, the number of students who are financially motivated to live on campus will increase.

This will be the impetus for future changes.

Housing-tied scholarships will pull students to live on campus who are already enrolled here. But, we wonder, how will our housing system fare with four years’ worth of students looking for space in the on-campus housing system.

And don’t forget that the incoming freshman class has grown by 7 percent for the past two years. And SLU plans to knock down some 100-plus bed spaces in Grand Forest.

It’s this housing crunch that will define our living spaces in years to come. It’s defining it now-Residence Life and other school administrators are obviously aware of the situation. But it’s important that you make known the way you hope the housing system changes.

If your $2,000 scholarship is tied to tuition, you can afford to give your two cents on this situation.

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