Private developers are increasingly stepping in to create off-campus housing to complement campus dormitories and give students options, NPR reported. These often high-end residences are part of what is now a $4 billion industry.
Faced with increasing enrollments and limited resources, higher-education institutions cannot always provide enough housing for all of their students. Georgia Tech in Atlanta, for example, has 310,000 students and only 60,000 beds available.
“Enrollment is the main driver for student housing and that university cannot pick up and go somewhere else. So, I mean, it is a stationary source of demand,” Kelli Smith, who is with apartment market research firm Axiometrics, told NPR.
Edward St. John, a professor at the University of Michigan who researches inequities in higher education, told NPR that he is concerned that the dependence on the private sector will continue to put a college education out of reach for low-income individuals.
“The cost of those high-class dorms are going to be outside of the allowable costs for student financial aid. They're not going to be able to provide aid for the low-income student to have the same privilege,” St. John told NPR.
