With on-campus beds falling far short of student demand, many University of Connecticut students were forced into expensive off-campus housing this fall, and for some, the financial and emotional burden is overwhelming.
Dayla Reyes, an honors student from Long Island majoring in sport management and minoring in sociology, was shocked to be waitlisted for housing in the spring because she said she had been guaranteed housing for four years as a member of the Honors Program.
“Having to pay monthly rent now has added even more financial stress for both me and my family,” Reyes said. “UConn needs to keep the promises they make. If students are told they’re guaranteed four years of housing, then they should get it.”
After months on the wait list, she said she was finally offered an on-campus space, but only after she signed an off-campus lease. Choosing stability over a last-minute change, she hung on to the lease and is living off campus.
Reyes said UConn should improve how it communicates about the housing realities to incoming students and families.
“If that’s not realistic, then they need to say that upfront,” Reyes said. “The university needs to provide more than just a link for off-campus housing. They should offer real support, guidance and resources for students who suddenly have to find a place to live.”
UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said first-year Honors students are required to live in Honors in Storrs if they live on campus, but otherwise, she said they don’t receive additional guarantees for housing.
Reitz said that now, UConn has no waiting list for housing and that all students who applied and were eligible have received offers, “as we anticipated and discussed publicly throughout the process.”
She emphasized that the university is housing a record number of nearly 13,400 students at Storrs, including in units leased this year at The Oaks on the Square, an off-campus complex in Downtown Storrs. The on-campus housing is at full capacity and includes areas where lounges were converted into living spaces to help meet demand, she said. Reitz added that the recent opening of The Standard at Four Corners complex helped ease demand as some students chose to rent there for the new academic year.
The university’s increased popularity is driving the housing crunch. In the fall of 2020, UConn had 18,917 undergraduates enrolled on the Storrs campus, according to the university’s annual fact sheet. As of fall 2025 that number has risen to a preliminary enrollment number of 20,500.
Cianna Tangishaka, a senior from Massachusetts, also majoring in sport management, said she carefully read every piece of paperwork—including the housing contract—and expected she would have the option to live on campus all four years.
“I did the housing application right away, so the reality that I actually was not given housing was shocking,” Tangishaka, who is Reyes’ roommate, said. “I’m the eldest of three, and I was extremely stressed thinking about how the cost would affect my parents.”
Tangishaka said the university failed to plan responsibly.
“UConn didn’t live up to its promises,” she said. “They shouldn’t have anticipated any housing constraints without making sure to take care of the population that was already paying its bills.”
Her message to administrators is blunt.
“I hope you never have to experience the worry so many of us faced when we had two weeks to find a house or apartment,” she said.
Another student, Nick Miele, an accounting major from the Bronx, New York, said he felt displaced last spring.
“I’m paying $30,000 a year for tuition to be homeless,” Miele said. “I can’t go here if I don’t have housing on campus.”
Miele said that as the number of first-year students UConn admits increases, it seems that available housing for upperclassmen continues to shrink.
“The university is just not expanding housing at the same pace as enrollment,” Miele said.
After months of what he described as “lottery-style uncertainty,” Miele landed Honors housing after all on campus.
For the 2025-2026 academic year, the lowest-priced UConn housing option costs $4,033 per semester and $8,066 annually. In contrast, off-campus housing can run more than twice that amount per year. The Oaks is the only off-campus housing complex affiliated with UConn. A double-occupancy apartment in The Oaks leased through UConn costs $7,715 per semester, or $15,430 per year. Single-occupancy units in the same complex can reach $9,894 or more per semester, or $19,788 annually.
But other off-campus complexes – including those units of The Oaks that are leased independently, The Standard, Celeron Square Apartments and Carriage House Townhomes – do not have formal partnerships with UConn. The students who live in these locations must sign private leases and handle all housing logistics themselves.
The Standard charges upwards of $2,447.95 per month for a one-bedroom unit, totaling nearly $30,000 annually. The Oaks, when not leased through UConn, runs about $2,360 per month for a one-bedroom unit.
Celeron Square offers a rate of $1,326 per month for a one-bedroom apartment, still amounting to $15,912 annually.
Carriage House Townhomes, which only offers two-bedroom, one-bathroom units, starts at $2,400 per month.
For students like George Cooke, a biomedical engineering student in the Honors Program from Long Island, the financial disparity between on-campus and off-campus living is difficult to manage.
After struggling to secure a spot on campus the summer before coming to UConn, Cooke lived at The Oaks in the fall his first year.
“Financially, it’s $8,000 more a year to live in the Oaks compared to what I would have been doing for Buckley,” Cooke said, referencing the $8,886 annual cost of living in Buckley Hall, one of the designated freshman Honors housing dorms. “But here, I don’t even have a meal plan.”
Cooke also noted the emotional toll of the process.
“They didn’t feel very helpful at all,” Cooke said, describing the lack of support he received from UConn’s residential life housing department. “They’re admitting so many students that they know they don’t have housing for.”
Cooke was able to secure a room in South Campus this year because his friends invited him to take one of the open spots in their suite.
John Armstrong, the associate dean of students at UConn, said the Dean of Students Office provides off-campus housing resources through the UConn Off-Campus Housing website.
Armstrong noted that after the office’s staff was reduced, many of responsibilities were absorbed into his role.
In 2024, the university saw the need to support students who are either looking for off-campus housing or area commuting to campus. While resources are stretched thin, he said that the office is still striving to meet students’ needs.
“The fact that I am there and run that office is very helpful because I have connections with off- campus properties,” he said. “The staffing has been reduced significantly, but we’re still able to support students in the best way we can.”
Julia Gillego is majoring in journalism and communication at the University of Connecticut. This story is republished via CT Community News, a service of the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, an organization sponsored by journalism departments at college and university campuses across the state.
