University housing crisis in Tampa

After the Coronavirus hit in 2019, many college students could not have the whole college experience they desired because of the lockdown. Now that we are back in the swing of things and Covid cases have decreased greatly, students are ready to finally get the experience they’ve been yearning for. 

However, one popular choice in the Bay area, The University of Tampa, is having difficulty keeping up with the number of applicants and new students who plan on living on campus. Colleges are beginning to shut down housing applications early due to the number of requests coming in, and it has gotten to the point where universities are being forced to turn students away because of the shortage of dorms. 

At the University of Tampa, incoming students were told that if they sent in their housing application and deposit before May 1st, they would have guaranteed housing. Unfortunately, UT was not able to live up to this claim and hasn’t for the last ten years, according to Fox 13 News.

Some of The Academy’s seniors are facing this problem while applying for college housing, including Senior Sophia Marcantoni.

Sophia shared her struggle to find a place to live next year when she attends the University of Tampa. She says “I put my housing application in well before the deadline and was told that there were no more dorms available for me to stay in.”

Marcantoni explains that she was “very disappointed because I was excited to be able to have the traditional college dorm experience, and I believed that I was assured to have one.”  

To try and resolve this crisis, universities have started partnering with hotels that are not owned by the colleges to house students throughout the school year. 

One of these hotels, The Henry, is listed on the University of Tampa’s preferred housing lists for incoming students. The rent is notably high starting at 1,200 per month per person, but desperate students are willing to pay the price to attend college. 

One of the University spokesmen says that The Henry “eases but does not solve the housing shortage.” So, although there are other options for students who were denied a place to live, the college housing crisis is still a big problem in Tampa that seems to be getting increasingly worse every year.