UChicago Students Can Lease Rooms in Sophy Hotel or Hyatt Place

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

According to the Maroon:

As the University prepares to open campus this fall, housing and residence life must change in order to ensure social distancing. Under social distancing precautions, typically vibrant and bustling dorm spaces will look quite different, with empty house lounges and community spaces like kitchens and study rooms dark and locked up.

An email sent to the University community on June 30 announced that residence halls will operate at 40 percent capacity during autumn quarter. All rooms will be single occupancy with bathroom designations that restrict those communal spaces to a 3:1 fixture count.

To accommodate for the limited on-campus housing, the requirement for students to live on campus for six quarters, which would have taken its first effect for second-years this fall, has been waived. Incoming first-years are expected to live in residence halls and the remaining on-campus capacity has been prioritized for second-years. Third- and fourth-years who wish to live on-campus are placed on a waitlist for the limited space not filled by first- and second-years.

Danika Kmetz, assistant director of College communications, told The Maroon that “Housing & Residence Life thus far has been able to accommodate all requests for on-campus housing from incoming and returning students who participated in room selection.”

With the reduced on-campus capacity, it is likely more students will be moving into the surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood than normal. To facilitate the increased need for off-campus housing, the University worked with local rental agencies to identify off-campus housing options. These options were listed in an “Apartment Resources” document and a guide to “Finding an Off-Campus Apartment,” shared in an email to the College community.

Two unconventional options listed were new student residences in the Sophy and Hyatt Place hotels. The University partnered with Olympia Hotel Management to develop student housing plans for the upcoming school year. All rooms will be single-occupancy on designated student floors to limit contact with other hotel guests. Accommodations include a weekly housekeeping service and take-away continental breakfast bags each morning.

Whereas a regular guest at a typical hotel room would pay on a per-night basis, students will pay a tax-exclusive, monthly flat rate. The cost of a student room in the Hyatt is $2,300 per month and $3,000 per month for the Sophy.

In comparison, UChicago’s room rate for the 2020–21 school year is $3,472 per quarter, which is approximately $1,352 per month for a regular, 11-week quarter. According to a report conducted by the rental site Rent Jungle in June of this year, the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Hyde Park was $1,679 a month.

In the College’s first email, it announced that all students on financial aid will receive an additional aid package in order to support any increased costs associated with off-campus living such as rent or food expenses.

The College is still collecting data on the number of students returning to campus and the distribution of students living in off-campus housing, Kmetz told The Maroon. At this point, rental agencies have indicated to the College that there are still available rental units around campus and they expect more will open up in the coming weeks.

2

So, a couple of details:

1 - it’s 40% reduction in capacity. Maroon had that wrong.

2 - the aid package released this week will include about $5k more than it usually does for off-campus housing. Another way to look at it is that, for purposes of calculating FA, there is no discount in cost of attendance for living off campus. Or at home.

3 - Students should be looking in Woodlawn as well, although I doubt they’ll find something for less than $1400/month single occupancy. Sophy and Hyatt Place are suites, aren’t they? That will be roomy. However, no kitchen so food would be a problem. Dining halls won’t be open to off-campus this fall but you can purchase Marooon dollars.

3

I have stayed in both Hyatt Place and Sophy Hotel. They have suites but the majority of the accommodations are just regular rooms. They aren’t all suites hotel. And the suites do not have kitchen. So food can be a problem if you plan to cook. But if you plan to eat at Valois everyday, then you should be okay :wink:

4

Does Valois take Maroon bucks? :wink:

5

Trust me, living in a hotel is not something I would wish on any student. My oldest had her apartment flood in Boulder during the torrential downpours that happened there 6 years ago. They put her up in a hotel for a couple of months and it wasn’t fun. No kitchen is a big deal living off campus.

6

This is all very interesting. My kid is a first-year, so luckily he doesn’t have to worry about living off campus. And while it’s terrific that the University is making allowances for FA students, it’s clear in all sorts of ways that the University is putting more of a burden on non-FA students. Most non-first years can’t stay on campus and they’ll be paying more to live off-campus. It seems to me that in this and many other ways the University is milking all it can from those paying full freight. Sure, that’s something of a first-world problem, but it strikes me that the University is doing all it can to get all it can from what Orwell described as the ‘lower upper-middle class.’

7

^ Some clarification is in order:

  1. Everyone who requested on-campus housing and participated in room selection obtained a room, per the Housing office (reported by the Maroon). Now, does that mean that everyone who wanted on-campus housing was able to participate in the lottery? Not sure. But most by their third year move off-campus anyway so it may not matter much. We do know that there was enough housing for all 2nd years who requested participation in the lottery, because that was announced at the July 7 webinar. The waiver of the 2-year housing requirement provided more choices for 2nd years and opened up housing for any third or even fourth years who wanted it. This week everyone gets to decide once and for all whether they are staying in housing (a few will opt out), and then presumably there may be extra rooms available for anyone who wishes to come to campus in Fall or Winter. So while housing is seemingly decided last-minute this year, practically speaking most coming to campus will be able to live where they choose. Had WRC not come on line when it did, that wouldn’t have been the case. That new dorm couldn’t have been better timed!

  2. It’s cheaper to live off-campus. In a normal year, the FA office recognizes this fact and reduces your FA accordingly (by about $5k), so those on FA normally don’t benefit from the move to off-campus. However, full-pay students do, indeed, benefit. This year, the university has decided not to reduce the FA by the $5k, supposedly in order to help offset any rent increases from a potentially large demand of incoming college students. I don’t think such has happened. There are still units available for rent in Hyde Park and while rents are higher than they were a few years ago, they don’t seem to have increased this year over last. Most likely, Sophy and Hyatt Place are backup but will not be utilized unless by choice. They are anticipating lower room utilization this fall, so it benefits them to partner with the university here.

  3. This year for the first time, our family will have two full-pay students attending UC (they’ve been on need-based aid in the past while a third finished up college). We do not believe we’ve been burdened as a result any more than we were expecting to be and had planned for, so I’m very interested in @Mom2Melcs’s viewpoint and the rationale behind it. It is indeed the case that UChicago, beginning with the Class of '20 through at least the Class of '22 (more recent data not yet available) has both shifted to a higher percentage of full pay than historically and increased the average size of grant aid for those actually on need-based aid. The university’s average net cost of attendance is higher than HYPS and others in the top 10. Last year, the College was notable for posting an $80k cost of attendance; this year several other institutions seem to have caught up or are within striking distance (UChicago’s tuition+fees+R/B has been frozen). UC isn’t offering a tuition discount or free summer courses à la HYP; however, they aren’t kicking anyone off campus either. We won’t know till June whether the “welcome all” message is a gimmick or not, but I don’t think it is. I think they mean what they say that an academic community bests functions when people are actually there. That’s a very different message from other elite institutions that are kicking a portion of the student body off campus for the year. And, UC is offering choices. One needn’t come to campus if one doesn’t wish to. Several have opted to stay home (thus saving on living expenses) if they get all online courses.

8

Experiences will vary, but we’ve also found that it’s much less expensive to live off campus, even assuming you might have to pay for a few months of an apartment that you might not end up using. Between lower apartment costs and much, much lower food costs, living off campus is going to be substantially less expensive for my son this year as compared to prior years in the dorms.

We’re not unhappy that he spent the first two years in BJ. It was a great experience for him, he enjoyed house culture and the whole thing was just very easy and convenient. But it’s been an eye opener what that convenience costs when you compare it to the cost of apartments and food off campus.

So I think, if anything, by releasing students from the requirement that they spend 2 years in the dorms, UChicago is actually saving the students money rather than soaking them.