Students in UI housing all on campus now

MOSCOW — All students living in University of Idaho housing are officially on campus after starting the school year temporarily at the FairBridge Inn on Baker Street until space in the dorms opened.

John Kosh, UI Auxiliary Services director of business development, marketing and communications, said many UI officials “lost sleep” over this situation after having an overflow of enrollments.

“This is not what you want parents to hear,” Kosh said. “We don’t want parents to think they are being tossed away.”

At the beginning of September, 117 students were living off campus at the hotel. Each week, some students were moved from the hotel to the dorms.

Last Friday, they were officially able to fit the last seven students into the dorms.

Although this has brought up the question of building more dorms at the university, Kosh said they are more so looking into making accommodations.

“At a university, you’ve got to realize that you go up and down in enrollments all the time,” Kosh said. “If we build more, we could go down in enrollments and then the dorms aren’t being occupied.”

Kosh and others of the UI Auxiliary Services have been considering floor plans limiting suites on-campus; this would make a single bedroom into a double bedroom to fit more students.

“If numbers continue to grow, we might not be able to do suites,” Kosh said. “We might even have to accommodate with the LLC (Living Learning Center) which is generally reserved for upperclassmen.”

Nevertheless, Kosh wants the public to know nothing has been finalized and they are looking at possible solutions for the next several years.

At the beginning of the semester, there were 2,098 students enrolled for on-campus residency. It has gone down to 1,997 residents.

Carrillo-Casas may be contacted at mcarrillo@dnews.com.