The rising costs in the housing market are touching most communities, including student housing on college campuses across the state.

Ana Hernandez is the Assistant Vice President of Housing & Residential Education at the University of South Florida. She said the school’s student housing is already full for next semester. Hernandez said there are currently less than a hundred students on their wait list.

“Unfortunately, we had to close our applications in the first week and so we weren’t able to take any additional applications,” she said. “We’re still trying to place all the applications we have received.”

With about 50 thousand students, several campuses and 7400 beds, the reason the dorms are at capacity varies.

“We had seen an increase in demand. Obviously during Covid. We had some beds that were available, but ever since last year we have been full and we expected that would be the demand that we’d face,” she said.

Lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area is also a link to the increase.

“We track the purpose build, so student housing purpose builds properties around campus and we have over five thousand beds that are in the area. What we’ve seen is that there certainly has been an increase in rental rates from last year to this year, between seven and 20 percent, depending on the property,” she said.

There are some options. “One of the things that we’re talking to parents about is, we may have some no shows that may happen in the fall where students are planning to come to USF and then they decide they may not come. And so after a couple of weeks, we may have some vacancies so they can check back,” said Hernandez. “We also encourage them to consider options for just the fall semester and then check with us for the spring semester when we usually have some vacancies.”

USF isn’t the only school in Florida at the capacity of housing. The University of Central Florida has also reached its limit.

In Tallahassee at Florida A&M University, they’ve also reached their max for student housing. To assist their students who will attend college for the first time or transfer students with less than 60 credits, FAMU is offering rental help of up to $4,000 for the year.

The plan at FAMU assists the 506 first time in college students on the waitlist to secure some of the 2,450 on-campus beds. Those students will be eligible to receive $4,000 ($2,000 per semester) for the school year for off-campus rent help and the on-campus Gold 400 meal plan valued at $5,716 for the 2022-2023 school year.  

At FAMU, the first 200 AA transfer students and transfers with fewer than 60 hours who are currently on the waitlist also are eligible for this package. 

The first 400 upperclassmen assigned on-campus housing who show by 5 p.m. July 22 their desire to move off campus will receive this package for the 2022-2023 school year as well. The University hopes that enough upperclassmen will accept the offer and thus create vacancies for FTIC students who can move on campus. Interested students should immediately contact the Office of University Housing by email at famuhousing@famu.edu.

The relief will serve as a $1,079 average monthly room and board subsidy to ease the financial burden of the additional cost of off-campus housing for the nine-month 2022-2023 school year.