As students arrive on campus this week for the fall semester at the University of Kentucky, about 8,500 of them will move into residence halls.
UK’s overall enrollment for the new year stands at more than 38,000. Officials say students living on campus will fill most of the more than 8,500 beds across 19 residence halls.
Earlier this month, UK opened its latest dorm, Kirwan-Blanding Hall, with more than 600 new beds. It’s part of a number of ongoing campus construction projects.
Several residence halls were opened between 2012 and 2017. In 2016, UK opened Holmes Hall and Boyd Hall with a combined capacity for 1,141 residents. In 2017, Lewis Hall and the University Flats Undergraduate Wing opened to house 1,117 students.
For those living off-campus, there’s a variety of rental options and new apartment complexes going up.
However, the demand is pressuring an already overextended Fayette County housing market. A report found Lexington needs more than 22,000 more units, a crunch that’s part of a statewide housing shortage.
Lisa Williams, UK’s executive director of auxiliary services, said the university does not have required on-campus living policies, but about 85% of first-year students choose to do so.
“We really talk to our prospective students about the community that they're going to find in that space,” Williams said. “We know students who live on campus tend to have higher GPAs. They tend to remain at a university, and so we really talk about how living on campus creates that support for you as soon as you step on campus.”
UK holds back some of the rooms for upperclassmen, and she said more students have returned to campus housing in recent years, especially since the pandemic.
Students have some choice of residence hall, and rates and living situations vary. Williams said the annual rate increase gets approved by the UK Board of Trustees each year.
“A lot of times [students are] looking at location of campus, so if all of their classes are on the north end of campus, they're probably going to choose one of the residence halls that are on the north side of campus, and same with central campus,” Williams said.
Roughly 7,000 of those living on campus were first-year students last year, Williams said, enjoying convenience and community.
“They don't have to worry about utilities or any of those pieces, and so it's a good stepping stone for them to kind of find their space at UK,” Williams said.
