U. can't meet demand for graduate student housing

Correction appended

Ninety-one percent of graduate students who applied for University housing were assigned rooms in last week’s draw for the upcoming academic year, up from 85 percent last year.

The University currently uses a system in which incoming students are guaranteed rooms for the following year and rising second- and third-year students are given high priority in the housing draw, but graduate students in the fourth, fifth and sixth years risk not being granted University housing.

Many graduate students criticized the current system as unfair for upper-level students, whose studies leave little time for finding alternative housing.

“I understand the basic policy principles [for graduate housing],” said Sam Mukherji GS, a fourth-year student in the music department who has been denied University housing for two years in a row. He added that he thinks it is “a little unfair” that senior graduate students in the midst of finishing their dissertations are the ones most likely to be unsuccessful in the draw.

Currently, 78 percent of graduate students live on campus, but the University only commits to providing housing for 70 percent of the graduate student body. Consequently, many students, like Mukherji, are waitlisted each year.

“Given the realities of the situation, I think the housing department does an excellent job trying to provide living space to as many people as possible and facilitating the search for off-campus apartments,” Rose MacLean GS said in an e-mail.

The University has not paid enough attention to graduate student housing, said Santiago Romero-Vargas Castrillon, a rising fourth-year graduate student. “It wasn’t a priority before the financial crisis hit, and it certainly isn’t now,” he said.

The University originally planned to renovate the Hibben-Magie Apartments and make the apartments — which are currently open to graduate students, faculty and staff — open to graduate students only, but administrators announced that they may cancel these plans because of the current economic downturn. In this case, they will contract an outside developer to rebuild the Hibben-Magie complex. The initial plans to convert the Stanworth Apartments from faculty and staff housing to graduate student housing and to demolish Butler Apartments will go forward as planned.

Calls for the systemic reform of graduate housing have continually surfaced on the Graduate Student Government (GSG) agenda, GSG press secretary Anne Twitty said.

Mukherji said he and other students have “pleaded with the housing department to do something about [the housing situation].”

“There seems to be a breakdown in communication between us and, specifically, the housing department,” he said.

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Graduate housing manager Scott Baldwin said he “wouldn’t say the University enjoys hearing complaints over and over,” but added that the housing department “definitely takes concerns seriously.”

“We’re constantly enhancing [housing] each year,” Baldwin said. “If we can address these issues, we will.”

Castrillon, who said he thought he had very good odds of getting housing since he drew with a rising second-year graduate student, said he was put on the waitlist, noting that he thought his experience was an example of the system’s problems.

Heng Xiao GS, a fourth-year student who also was not successful in room draw, said he thought the University is “not operating the system efficiently” and doesn’t adequately communicate with graduate students about their concerns. “In general, I don’t think the customer service is good enough,” he said.

But Baldwin said he “constantly keeps in touch” with the waitlisted students and notifies them immediately of any change in housing status.

Though some waitlisted students eventually receive rooms on campus, Twitty said the notifications often come too late to be of any use.

The University does not provide compensation to students who do not get housing, but it does help them find alternatives by operating an online database of privately owned off-campus housing.

Twitty noted, though, that off-campus housing is far from ideal, saying these accommodations are hard to find and “exorbitantly expensive.” She added that “[living off campus] makes it more difficult for graduate students to be a part of the Princeton community.”

Correction:

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that rising second- and third-year graduate students are guaranteed University housing and misquoted Castrillon as saying he should have been guraranteed housing because he drew with a rising second-year student. Second- and third-year graduate students only have a significantly higher chance of receiving housing based on the draw priority system. That version also failed to note that the University may hire an outside developer to build new apartments if it does not renovate Hibben-Magie.