Temple University upperclassmen are now busy scouting the nearby area for apartments to rent for the coming fall.
The school unveiled a recent policy change over the students' winter break, which states that Temple will no longer provide any housing for upperclassmen.
"We just don't have the stock. We can't even offer it to juniors and seniors at all," said Harry Knabe, assistant director for Assignments and Billing at Temple.
Under the new policy, freshmen, sophomores and transfer students will still be eligible for housing.
"We don't guarantee housing to anyone; it's first come, first serve," said an employee in the Temple Housing Department Office.
Finding dormitories for Temple's rapidly growing student population, which now includes 19,000 undergraduates, has been a persistent problem.
"For more than four years, Temple has not been able to guarantee anyone housing, so the policies previously resulted in a percentage of all grades applying for housing and not getting it," Knabe said.
This percentage has steadily increased despite Temple's continued efforts to build new on-campus dormitories.
The number of students eligible for housing within the last four years has more than doubled from 2,600 to 5,300.
Temple refutes speculations that the problem is a result of over-enrollment.
"True, the number of students has increased, but the number of upperclassmen students coming back to housing has exponentially grown," Knabe said.
Four years ago, 60 percent of upperclassmen stayed on campus. Today, over 90 percent choose to live on campus.
This change has created a new host of difficulties for Temple.
"This was the first year we ran out of freshman beds by several hundred before May 1," Knabe said.
High-level administration members spent most of the fall season analyzing current policy before deciding on the new course of action to be implemented for next fall.
Temple now has a policy of no longer funding future residential halls with university money in order to encourage an influx of private developers around campus.
The university is currently working with Philadelphia Management Corporation to split nearby building leases between students and private renters.
The Kardon, a newly renovated luxury apartment building on N. 10th Street, is comprised of "about one-third Temple students," Knabe said.
The Kardon has one- and two-bedroom apartments and rents range from $1,000 to $2,050 a month.
This fall, two additional buildings will have apartments available for students to rent: University Village on 10th and Montgomery streets and Oxford Village on the 1500 block of Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
Both new properties are in conjunction with PMC.
"Upperclassmen students who were displaced have the month of February to sign leases for all apartments," Knabe said.
