With dorms at full capacity for the 2025-26 academic year, returning students are struggling to secure on-campus housing for Fall 2025 as more students are applying for housing than there are available spaces.
University Housing and Residential Life works with Temple’s enrollment management team every year to make sure the university can appropriately recruit a first year class, setting aside about 80% of beds for incoming freshmen. However, even without enrollment fluctuations, housing returning students has been a recurring challenge, said Brandon Chandler, associate director of University Housing and Residential Life.
Students hoping to continue living on campus after their freshman year have to request a dorm on the university’s housing website, MyHousing, but most are being met with a complete unavailability of rooms.
“I had no issues last year and thought there’d be enough room for returning students,” said Gian Peralta, a sophomore theater, film and media arts student. “There was nothing. Not a single room.”
Peralta enjoyed the security of financial transactions with the university and is uncertain about that same security off-campus with a landlord. He’s considering transferring, with lack of housing factoring into his potential decision.
Ashley Hawkins, a freshman art and architecture student, logged onto the housing portal the minute her selection opened at noon on Feb. 12 to find every dorm already at capacity. Growing anxious about her $250 housing deposit, which students must place in order to participate in the selection process, she emailed UHRL and was advised to continue checking the portal for cancellations.
“I’m really worried about what to do,” Hawkins said. “I hope they refund my housing deposit if they give me nothing.”
Students who do not receive university housing will have their deposit refunded. However, they may want to retain their deposit, as UHRL usually sees a number of cancellations up until the late-May deadline, Chandler said.
Temple has not created any new housing spaces since the opening of Morgan Hall North and South in 2013, though it is heavily supported by off-campus development. UHRL allocates its space based on these development trends and student retention rates.
“We’re all adjusting to what class sizes are going to be, and that is in consideration of student retention,” Chandler said. “We’ve seen a number of returning students desire to look at off-campus housing on their own, so a lot of off-campus development has happened in turn over the last several years.”
The enrollment and housing departments maintain communication on student demographics and enrollment goals as well in order to make decisions on housing.
“We want to achieve our enrollment goals,” Chandler said. “If students are being recruited from outside of the Philly area, they’re more likely to need housing, and that coupled with the context of our lack of growth since 2013, leaves less space for returning students.”
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment off-campus is $1,800 a month, according to the website Rentable, an online apartment marketplace. The average rate for campus housing per semester ranges from $4,788 to $8,180. Though typically more expensive, some students prefer living on campus because of built-in accommodations, safety and proximity to their class buildings.
Willow Johnson, a freshman business and management student, preferred living on campus due to the quick commute and security it afforded them, but hoped to save money by living off-campus.
After dealing with a few failed leasing attempts, Johnson assumed university housing would remain a backup option. By the time they checked for availability, nothing remained. Johnson is still uncertain where they’ll end up.
“I’m still scared something else is going to go wrong,” Johnson said. “Staying in Temple housing would’ve been simpler for me. Or at least, one might’ve thought it would have been simpler.”
MyHousing enables students to connect with and request roommates during housing selection. Johnson received random roommate requests from other students on selection day, not only hoping to become roommates, but desperate to connect with someone who had secured a spot.
UHRL is encouraging all students to promptly communicate cancellations. They are also preemptively taking stock of students who may be studying abroad or changing their living plans in order to free up spaces for students who need them.
For students left without a spot, UHRL plans to provide clear and timely communications and implement a waitlist system which quickly notifies students of openings in the coming weeks. UHRL also intends to connect students with an off-campus living coordinator, who will help them explore all alternative options available to them, Chandler said.
“We don’t want to cast these students into the wind, we want to make sure they know we support them in this process these next couple of weeks ahead,” Chandler said.
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