Beware, fellow CCers, our experience with UVM transfers so far has be terrible. Beyond the intro hike offered (a mere $750) there are online programs and no real help in the ways that transfer students need. UVM took far too many people for its freshman class and either this year fully abandoned its transfer students or abandoning transfer students is its modus operandi. Its transfer office is a place that figures credits. There seems to be no actual office for integrating transfer students int its community. If it exists, I couldn’t find it.
Worst, the cost of living UVM reports to College Navigator-the Federal Government–are simply false. There’s no way that any student can live at UVM for $12,800 per year room and board. The figure implies about $500-$600 per month for housing. Housing in Burlington costly and rare–UVM knows this and UVM sends its students to find housing there. UVM makes up a quarter of the entire city of 42,000 people on a good year. This year is worse. UVM took too many freshman students and decided to push all other students into off-campus housing. They are telling people to living in far-flung suburbs and take buses–in the cold. Even in far-away places there the costs for a room are $1000-$1300 per month.
This has important STUDENT LOAN information for any students that rely on UVM’s reports to the Federal Government about room and board. A student will blow through their student loan budget and will be forced to take on more debt. UVM simply has zero help for anyone in this position–other than to offer more loans to them.
The business model of UVM, behind its sweet-sounding website, and the “we do everything well and correctly here” messaging, seems to be to accept as many students (freshmen and transfers), as possible, charge extremely high amounts for everything (affiliated housing is what they point you to and the cheapest room we found was SHARED at $830 per month, the next cheapest was $1050), and then point you to the general housing market with prices that are about the same. When you can get a real person on the phone, they are very sweet and offer no real help. You are on your own!
Hi–so there’s no guaranteed housing, but my impression is that UVM threaded us along with false promises of housing and they are in a community with an implied limit to housing. The entire community is 42000 and UVM is about 10,000, so a quarter of the community. They know they’ve blown through the housing stock in the entire community. I’m not complaining about UVM on-campus housing not existing. I’m complaining that no housing exists that we have access to at all in the Entire Northern Vermont Region. We’ve applied and applied and applied to usurious rated housing and we’ve gotten only one guy who seems dishonest–asking for an extra $550. Would you feel comfortable living with a guy who suddenly comes up with that sort of random charge? Would you feel it’s wise to send your child to that place? That’s it. That’s what we’ve gotten. Ive even looked at campgrounds in the area. There’s nothing. My point is that UVM accepted students and pushed them out onto the street. Not pushed them into the housing market. It’s a total mess.
I just want to add that this isn’t just transfer students. Even first years, required to live on campus, are piled up 240 deep on the waitlist currently. Everyone else is pushed out behind them. And UVM’s attitude is: you’re on your own. We take no responsibility. and literally “Oh! You have options!” is what I heard today. It’s really terrible. I almost feel like writing to Bernie Sanders and saying, This? This is what Vermont is really like? This?
Okay so I believe that refers to the Affiliated Housing. UVM reflexively refers its students to Affiliate Housing. We mistakenly believed that UVM owned that housing and we’d get accepted there and no issue. We were wrong. Affiliated Housing is owned by some who-knows developer and it’s bloody expensive. It’s higher priced than NYC. So that $830 was a BED in a shared room so the total cost of a shared room was $1660. And that was the CHEAPEST. Here’s the other kicker. Just because you’re enrolled and paid your tuition at UVM, they don’t control who gets accepted into Affiliate Housing. They might or probably get a kick back. The anonymous machine that you apply to, the random computer that takes your “application” kicks you out or accepts you. Shocked we were! So if you don’t get on-campus housing, you must go into either Affiliated Housing or the housing market. The housing market on normal years is tight and expensive. I also contacted the Federal Government because there’s NO WAY that UVM is reporting – or able to report – accurate figures for undergraduates BECAUSE THEY DON’T MONITOR THE MARKET. So the figures for undergraduate housing totals $12800. It’s possible to stay in that budget if you’re in the cheapest affiliate housing. The problem is that there are precious few rooms that are $830. The next level was $1050 and the level after that was $1500. That was affiliated housing IF YOU GET IN. You can’t get in unless you have Junior or Senior status. So then you have to face the Burlington housing market. It’s ruthless. No one or few people return your emails. I bid $100 over the asking price today and was rejected. So the people rising through Burlington’s system get the cheaper places and the others get stuck with heinous prices. We were rejected from the Affiliated housing because UVM figured the credits as a transfer as NOT QUITE junior status, but also didn’t inform us of the hosing implications until after we were rejected. We reapplied and then no affiliated housing regardless of the prices. The Vermont Digger has an article bout Pell Grant people struggling to find housing in Burlington. It’s a mess.
Funny you should mention Bernie. He was mayor when I went to UVM and he forced UVM to build more on campus housing because students were driving up the real estate prices and driving out families from “affordable” housing. He was also coming down hard on slumlords with unsafe student housing.