University of Kentucky housing and dining rates will increase next fall. See how much.
University of Kentucky housing and dining rates will increase again for next school year, university officials said Tuesday.
Greystar, the university’s private housing partner which built and manages over 7,000 of the on-campus beds, agreed to a 3 percent increase in housing rates, said Eric Monday, the university’s executive vice president for finance and administration.
UK’s Board of Trustees also on Tuesday approved a 3 percent bump to the room rates for the close to 700 university-constructed beds and similar increase to all of the university’s dining plans — which are required for students who live in dorms.
Before voting unanimously to approve the measure, some trustees in the board’s finance committee expressed concern with raising rates among the financial upheaval caused by the pandemic and asked for more information from Monday.
Under the increase, the cost of the university’s most-common room — the 2-bedroom suite — will go up from $4,684 per semester to $4,825 per semester. The cost of UK’s default dining plan — the all-access white — will go from $2,200 per semester to $2,268 per semester.
The university has raised housing and dining rates every year since at least 2016 and last year, Monday said the university raised housing rates by 2.8 percent.
“With that in mind, is that a bit much even going up 0.2 percent more?” asked Trustee Derrick Ramsey. “Considering these times, I just don’t want us as a university to be looked at as over-charging or taking advantage. That’s a very miniscule amount, but still.”
The university does not require students to live on-campus, even as freshmen, Monday said, and because of that the university has to keep housing and dining rates within the limits of supply and demand. Prior to the pandemic, Monday said 88 percent of freshmen chose to live campus housing.
Ahead of the fall 2019 semester, demand for on-campus housing out-stripped university supply, leaving UK to convert multipurpose spaces into temporary dorm rooms after the university overbooked the on-campus dorms.
Courtney Wheeler, the student government association president and also a trustee, said she shared Ramsey’s concern but was assured since the university did not require students to live on-campus. Wheeler requested that the university continue to work with students on an individual level to be aware of the financial struggles that students face during the pandemic.
Monday also said that Greystar’s contract with the university allows the housing company to raise rates as much as 4 percent, but in meetings with the company “we’ve been able to work with them to get to 3 percent.”
“Rest assured, access and affordability is one of our key budget principles focused on that,” Monday said. “And we’re going to continue to work on that.”
The university’s partnership with Greystar has faced some criticism amid the pandemic. Members of United Campus Workers, a vocal union of higher education employees, published a report earlier this fall that raised concerns over meetings the company’s employees had with administrators and the fact that Greystar has some on-campus representatives which have both Greystar and UK email addresses.