CONWAY, Ark. — While school is out for the summer, local colleges and universities in Arkansas and across the country have been staying busy as they get ready to welcome students back for the fall semester.
At the University of Central Arkansas, enrollment is up, and that has had administrators looking for more housing.
In order to have enough room for all of the students this fall, UCA is renting close to 100 additional beds at The Edge apartment complex that is located across the street from campus.
The university's president said this is a good problem to have and he hopes enrollment continues to rise.
"Our overall applications for new housing are running seven and a half percent of where we were. And if you just isolate on freshmen that have their deposits in and have registered for classes, we're up almost 23% compared to this time last year," said Houston Davis, UCA President.
Davis said that's why they turned to The Edge to find additional housing for incoming students. The university partnered with the complex about five years ago when they were renovating some of the on-campus residence halls.
"Now it's for a delightful reason, and that's the enrollment growth. But either way, it's good to have a partner to be able to deliver the services and the quality that we want to deliver," he added.
Davis credits the UCA Commitment program for helping with freshman enrollment.
"The whole goal with UCA Commitment is to make certain that students know if we are the right fit for them, that they can come to UCA and avoid having to take on debt to be able to take care of their tuition and fees," he explained.
Even though The Edge is off-campus, he said it will still have an on-campus feel.
"We want to have programming. We want to make certain that we're running shuttles. We want students to feel like that apartment setup is just like the other apartment-style housing that we have on campus," Davis said.
If this enrollment trend continues year after year, Davis said the university might end up building more housing, but right now that is just a conversation.
Move-in day at UCA will be on Sunday, August 18, 2024.