My daughter was happy to be accepted to Class of 2027, but we are hearing some pretty scary stuff about housing.
- I have heard that freshmen should expect to be in a triple, in rooms that may or may not have been designed to fit three students. That’s not a dealbreaker but is a bit concerning.
- Much more concerning: it seems (could be wrong!) that housing is only truly guaranteed for the first year, and after that it may be a “luck of the draw” situation. And that there are about twice as many kids wanting rooms as there are available spaces. In other words, the odds are against you.
- Rents around Amherst seem to be running around $1500/month (that’s per person), which works out to nearly double the cost of staying on campus. No wonder there aren’t enough rooms to go around!
Can anyone out there shed any light? Is it as bad as it seems?
Hi there,
We are also checking out the housing situation. I haven’t asked around about crowding problems, but I found an article on masslive dot com about transfer students living in an Econolodge last fall (tried to include the link but it wouldn’t let me)
which explains that last year’s incoming class was unusually large, plus, because of covid, more upperclass students were requesting on campus housing to get that experience that they missed earlier. It’s likely many of these pressures would be somewhat relieved by this fall.
There are about 14,000 on campus housing spots, so that’s about half the undergraduate population. It does say on campus housing is only guaranteed for the first year. I didn’t easily find any info on Greek living options, but the off campus housing board had a bunch of affordable options within walking distance. Yes, the cheaper situations were in older houses, not new apartment buildings, but these are single rooms so, you could have your own room for $800/month, probably plus utilities tho (could be much cheaper if landlord allowed sharing rooms). Whereas on campus for the year is projected to be $8,600 for the year in a double which is about $955/mo but includes utilities.
But all this is from a few minutes of online research - I’d also love to hear from anyone with on the ground experience
Just found the Umass Reddit and read a bunch - yah, it looks pretty bad and that’s a problem where solutions take years
Hey, thanks for replying! Sorry I didn’t respond sooner—truth is, my daughter is kind of moving on from UMASS. It’s only partly because of the housing thing—we attended accepted student day and it just felt too big overall. And from one mom to another, I honestly can’t picture my kid (awesome as she is!) being prepared to handle off-campus living in just a year from now. But that’s all very specific to our family. Certainly all the students we encountered were extremely friendly and the program itself seemed awesome.
No worries. UMass is our only affordable choice, though we are hoping for a call from one of his 6 waitlisted schools. I think I read that there were 900 who entered the housing lottery that didn’t get a spot out of 14,000, so unlikely to be sophomores. And anecdotally we keep hearing of good experiences. The largeness feels like it will give DS training for real-life, both in finding housing and advocating for themselves in large classes. I’m more worried about him waking up in time for class, and I don’t know if a smaller school would help with that!
Good luck in the continuing process!
2 Likes
Yeah, I hear that. If my daughter ends up on academic probation because she can’t get her butt out of bed, mama is NOT going to be happy. Best of luck to you guys too!!
Whew. Glad I graduated when I did. I lived in Southwest 03-07 and they made Coolidge upperclass only for the 07-08+ years. We were like, where is everyone gonna go?! Amherst is UMass, houses and Amherst College, but the townhomes can only provide so much housing. Stuffing 4 students into a lowrise corner lounge and calling it a dorm room is a mess.
UMass is growing faster than they can provide housing. If you restrict ALL students living in the towers of Southwest, they have to go SOMEWHERE. Students were in the HoJo (Howard Johnson Hotel) and Campus Center Hotel back in 2006!! This isn’t new. They want your money and then you’re clearly still on your own after that.
I live in Boston and pay 1550 for a 2br apartment, no utilities, but heat included. 90min away. Refreshing to see as an alumni that it’s the same story, different year at UMass: housing is a mess.
No one forces you to go to class at UMass. Hope she has a great laptop. I graduated in 2007 (see post below). Most classes are 3 exams a semester, no random tests. But everyone is trying to cram and study for the exams at the same time, so wifi is pulled to the limit. So yeaaaaaaah, good luck!
I graduated in 2007. It was a problem then and there was no dorm restriction on anyone for their class year. UMass is a mess. I had a great time, but same story different day.