Commuter schools look to add housing

College leaders point to a lack of affordable options for students

Central Florida’s state colleges, traditionally commuter schools where most students are enrolled in two-year programs, are looking at adding housing to accommodate international students and satisfy young adults’ desires for more traditional campus experiences.

Trustees at Valencia College, the region’s largest such institution, met Wednesday to discuss adding on-campus housing, though they didn’t commit to a plan and it’s unclear whether they will.

If the college does add housing, it would be done largely to provide a landing place for international students who often arrive in the U.S. without furnishings or any credit history. With nearly 1,800 enrolled, Valencia has the sixth-highest number of students from other countries among U.S. community colleges, according to the Institute

of International Education.

Valencia is trying to increase the number of international students to 2,500 over the next couple of years, President Sandy Shugart said, in part because of the perspectives they offer their classmates and the higher, outof-state tuition rates they pay. The college actively recruits students from about 10 countries, including Vietnam, Peru and Sweden.

“There are other reasons to

do housing,” Shugart said. “For me, this is the compelling reason.”

While a survey commissioned by the college found the international students were no less satisfied with their housing than their American peers, that data didn’t capture students who might’ve attended Valencia if they’d had the option to live on campus.

“This is a tool that could be employed to really encourage more students to come our way, rather than a cost and a pain, if you will,” Trustee Bruce Carlson said. “I think it’s probably an opportunity we need to look at a lot deeper, and quicker, perhaps.”

Aside from international students, Shugart said, the college isn’t trying to increase its enrollment — it already expects to add 60,000 students during the next 15 years, an estimate based on population growth and current college-going rates.

Valencia took its first crack at student housing this fall, when it opened a 600-bed dorm with the University of Central Florida at the two schools’ new shared campus in downtown Orlando. About half of the students living in the 15-story Union-West tower are enrolled at Valencia.

Across the state, nine institutions in the Florida College System and several in Central Florida are planning to add it soon. Like Valencia, these institutions primarily offer two-year degrees and short-term certificate and training programs.

Seminole State College is planning to add a 500-bed apartment-style student housing project on its Sanford/Lake Mary campus, spokesman Mark Richardson said.

“The move to do so is based on the need for affordable housing for inarea, out-of-area and international students and on a 2017 survey of interest conducted by the College’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research,” Richardson wrote in an email.

In August, Eastern Florida State College broke ground on a 96-bed apartment-style building on its Melbourne campus, which school leaders say should help satisfy students’ desires for a more traditional collegiate experience.

When the former Brevard Community College changed its name to Eastern Florida and started offering bachelor’s degrees in 2013, spokesman John Glisch said, students started asking for university-style amenities.

“One of the things we started hearing very quickly from current students is, ‘Hey are you guys ever going to have dorms? Are you going to have student housing?’” he said.

The college, which has four Brevard County campuses, surveyed students and talked with high school graduates-to-be and their families and found that the possibility of living on-campus was attractive to many, even to those who didn’t live far away.

“There was that idea of being away from home and yet being very close home,” Glisch said.

Students are expected to move into the new residence hall next August.

Likewise, trustees at Daytona State College decided over the summer to build their first on-campus housing, a 250-bed residence hall. With the opening of a new student center earlier this year, the time seemed ripe to build housing as well, said Erik D’Aquino, vice president for enrollment management.

The college has owned townhomes about three miles from the main campus for more than 10 years, but those residences were largely used by student-athletes. D’Aquino said he expects athletes to fill about half of the beds in the new dorm, which is scheduled to open in 2021.

At Valencia, college leaders are looking to a new apartment complex expected to open next year just south of their east Orange County campus as an indicator of whether oncampus housing would be a hit. The complex, River Run at Valencia, has marketed itself to college students.

And Shugart stressed the college can’t solve Central Florida’s affordable housing shortage by building on campus. The rental rates the college would charge, he said, likely would be comparable with what students would find elsewhere.

College trustees likely will revisit the question of whether to build housing in the coming months.