June 2025 | Mike Brassfield
The state’s affordable housing crisis is spurring increased demand for on-campus housing. Some schools are building more to help bridge the gap.
Here’s how college life used to work: You’d go off to college and live in a residence hall your freshman year. You’d share a tiny dorm room with a roommate, and shower in a big, shared bathroom down the hall. You’d stay in the dorms for a year or two, then move off campus and live in a house or an apartment with your college friends.
The problem with that idea today? In Florida, rising rents off campus are driving more and more upperclassmen to try staying on campus for their junior or senior years, because it’s more affordable. And that’s causing a severe housing crunch on Florida campuses, with lengthy waiting lists for student housing.
The problem is especially dire in South Florida, where rents are especially high and where schools like Florida International University (in Miami), Florida Atlantic University (in Boca Raton) and the University of Miami (in Coral Gables) are feeling the effects. FAU and UM have even rented blocks of rooms in hotels to handle the soaring demand for student housing. But Florida’s public universities in Gainesville, Orlando, Tampa and Tallahassee are facing the same problem.
“Securing a spot in on-campus housing has become increasingly competitive, especially for upperclassmen. Institutions tend to give priority to underclassmen, making it more difficult for upperclassmen to secure housing,” says Loryn May, student body president at Florida A&M University. “Being that Tallahassee is a college town, thousands of students are searching for affordable off-campus housing. The process can be difficult, especially if a student has specific criteria such as proximity to campus or a preference for living alone.”
BUILDING BOOM
In response, Florida universities are putting on their hard hats and launching ambitious and expensive building plans to dramatically increase the number of student beds on campus.
- This fall, the University of Florida will demolish its aging Graham, Simpson and Trusler residence halls, removing 622 beds. They’re to be replaced by new buildings with enough space for 1,100 beds, but that’s only the first step of a 10-year, billion-dollar plan to add 2,500 beds to campus via new construction and renovation. More than 70% of UF’s undergraduate beds are in dorms that are more than 60 years old. “This board will not kick the can down the road,” UF Trustee David Brandon said at a Board of Trustees meeting in December. “We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to do what it takes to solve these problems.”
- At Florida State University, “we are targeting the northwest sector of our main campus for new on-campus housing facilities that will increase our total capacity,” says FSU spokesman Dennis Schnittker. “Our long-term goal is a total of 8,000 beds, which would be an overall increase of 1,300.”
- Florida International University currently has 2,000 students on its waitlist for housing for Fall 2025. Historically known as a commuter school, FIU has relatively few residence halls, but it says it’s beginning to transition to a more residential campus. Its newest dorm, 13-story Tamiami Hall, opened in 2022 with room for nearly 700 students. “We are planning to build a 1,174-bed facility that will break ground next year and open in Fall of 2028,” says FIU spokeswoman Maydel Santana.
- At the University of Central Florida, the action is off campus. Last year, Orange County approved the construction of three new privately owned apartment complexes located just off campus, which will add 3,600 available beds for students. A report by commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield found that Orlando has more off-campus student housing projects in the development pipeline than anywhere else in Florida.
- In recent years, the University of South Florida has added new residence halls to its Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses. In the next few years, it plans to demolish and replace its Tampa campus’ three oldest dorms, which date to the 1960s. “The demand to live on the Tampa campus remains strong, and our facilities are full,” says USF spokeswoman Althea Johnson. “Therefore, we continue to explore options for further expanding our capacity.”
- Florida Atlantic University is currently building a seven-story, 674-bed residence hall on its Boca Raton campus. Named Talon Hall, it will open in Fall 2026.
- Florida A&M University, which has a well-documented shortage of student housing, broke ground last year on a new 700-bed residence hall on what used to be a gravel parking lot on campus. It will open this fall. Also in the works are another 500-bed residence hall and an 800-bed mixed-use apartment complex.
- “The University of Miami is in the midst of a comprehensive, strategic plan to transform the living experience on its Coral Gables Campus,” says UM spokeswoman Megan Marie Ondrizek. In 2020, it opened Lakeside Village, a complex of 25 buildings with room for 1,115 students. Last August, the first phase of Centennial Village opened, adding 881 beds. The second phase of Centennial Village will come online in August 2026, adding another 1,149 beds.
NEW AND IMPROVED
Even as new residence halls sprout from the ground, they’re noticeably different from the student dorms of yesteryear. They tend to have more amenities, for one thing.
“More privacy is incorporated now. Common bathrooms are uncommon in new construction. Suite-style bathrooms have been preferred for quite some time now,” says FAU spokesman Joshua Glanzer. “Sensory spaces, wellness spaces, zoom/podcast rooms are more common. Study rooms remain very popular, but their designs have evolved. Public areas that can build community remain very important.”
Today’s college students tend to expect more privacy in their bedrooms and bathrooms. And today’s residence halls offer more options for students — traditional dorm rooms, suites or apartments. A number of Florida universities offer “living learning communities” — residence halls where students with the same academic goals live alongside one another and take classes together. These are an option for nursing students, business majors, future teachers and engineers, and more.
Some things never change, though.
“As much as the buildings may look different, the core residential experience has not changed over the years,” says USF’s Althea Johnson. “It is still a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be part of a community of peers with similar goals and to make friendships that last well beyond students’ time on campus.”