After an increase in demand for on-campus housing, UCA gave housing assignments to every student with a housing application.

“All 3,600 that applied for UCA Housing received an assignment before move-in weekend,” Director of Housing Operations Heather Romine said. “There were 3,200 assigned in fall 2023. We had 3,600 in 2019, so we are back to pre-COVID numbers.”

Romine said because there was a higher demand for on-campus housing, the university had to open up rooms that were not originally available.

“We opened all of our temp rooms, and some of those are rooms that students will get to stay in, and some are where the later applicants have to be in an actual temp room, and we’re going to move them when something becomes available,” she said.

Romine said temporary housing rooms include apartments in residence halls, which were previously used for resident coordinators or academic advisors. She said there have been adjustments to how many people live in some dorms and campus apartments.

“Some of the bigger rooms where there would normally be two people have three,” she said. “Max amount in a dorm room is three, and max amount in an apartment is six, as there are normally three rooms.”

Romine said with an increase in applications, there has also been an increase in housing cancellations.

She said Housing received “3,400 applications by April 1, with 800 cancellations before April 1st, and 1,200 applications after April 1 with 200 cancellations after April 1.”

Romine said there were only 500 cancellations in fall 2023.

Romine said when cancellations happen, or if a bed ends up not being claimed, students placed in temporary rooms will have the opportunity to move.

“We have about 70 temporary spaces open — that is 70 beds, not rooms,” she said.

She said when unclaimed spaces or spaces with cancellations become available, students will be offered the opportunity to move based on their application date “unless there are extenuating circumstances” that put them higher on the waiting list.

Romine said UCA has a contract with The Edge, an apartment complex near campus on Donaghey Avenue.

She said the university is leasing 96 beds from the complex.

“All of the rooms that we received are four per apartment,” she said. “They’re all singles, and all have their own bathroom.”

UCA President Houston Davis said the increase in housing demands can be credited to what he calls “the sugar spike.”

“You’ve got unusually large high school senior classes and slightly larger than normal high school junior classes — it really drops off after that,” he said. “No college in America needs to be building residence halls for that sugar spike.”

Davis said the need for affordable housing could also contribute to more returning students requesting campus housing.

“We may have a situation, as we look at the next five years, where it’s an unusually large number of our returning students that are now wanting to stay on campus because they didn’t have any other options —  well, that’s a different problem to solve,” he said.

Davis said if there is high demand for housing next year, UCA may extend its contract with The Edge, and it might show up on the housing application for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Freshman Gracie Oxford said she and her roommates had no issues securing housing.

“I applied right on October 10, and everything went smoothly,” she said.

While all applicants have received housing assignments, some students who canceled their housing claimed they did not get their deposits back.

Junior Aithne Emmons said, “My roommate and I were fortunate enough to be told at the beginning of summer that campus housing had not been secured for us.

“We were not given our deposit back despite the fact that we requested it the day of the deadline,” Emmons said.

However, Romine said all students who canceled within the deadline did get their deposits back.

“The deposit goes back to your student account. If there are other charges, the deposit will not payout but instead go towards those charges,” she said. “It’s best to check CashNet and see details to find your deposit.”

On Aug. 5, Student Affairs sent out an email stating, “Returning students who did not participate in the Room Selection Process and applied after April 1 may not get an assignment for the fall semester” and “freshmen who applied after May 15 who still need an assignment will likely be placed in a temporary space or asked to commute from home, if local.”

Romine said some students did not receive housing assignments until Aug. 14, the Wednesday before move-in weekend.

Tammi Ambrus, the mother of junior Cason Ambrus, said the delay in housing assignments from UCA made finding housing for her son difficult.

“It’s absolutely horrible communication. I’ll just start there,” she said. “No one seems to know anything, and every student worker is completely clueless.”

“When my son would call about his housing and called the housing office, they said the only way you get housing is if someone drops off the list,” Ambrus said.

She said her son waited until Aug. 1 to see if he got a housing assignment from UCA. 

She said her son applied to The Edge on Aug. 4, but they were “in limbo with this processing of an application” because there was a “lack of communication.”

Ambrus said her son constantly checked his UCA email to see if he got a dorm. 

Then, he checked his housing portal on MyUCA, and “boom, he got housing.”

“There was no urgent email saying, ‘Hey, you got housing,’” she said. “It’s just kind of a slip-in on the portal.”

Ambrus said after her son received a dorm space, she tried to cancel the application for The Edge.

She said, “The young man on the phone said to me, ‘Oh, that’s been happening so much.’

“So, I’m not the first parent to go through this,” she said. “It’s been happening a lot because parents panicked because they didn’t know where they stood with UCA as far as housing, so we went and did alternatives.”

She said she was charged a $552 cancelation fee and was told she would be responsible for the first month’s rent if The Edge did not have anyone to take over the lease.

Ambrus said the contract her son signed said, “Residents will pay a fee of $250 and remain liable for all the obligations for the rest of the term or pay a relating charge of  — it was left blank — and no longer remain liable of lease obligations from the effective date for the relating agreement through the lease in date.”

Ambrus said as of Aug. 23, the check she wrote for The Edge has not been cashed and she has yet to be able to get in contact with anyone there.

“I’ve never heard anything back from them, and I have sent three emails,” she said. “When I call, they don’t even answer anymore. It goes straight to voicemail, so I’m assuming because now they recognize my number, they just refuse to answer.”