How is UK adapting to more students living on campus?

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The University of Kentucky is welcoming back thousands of students, but with more students wanting to live on campus than ever, is there room for everyone?

UK students continue to pour into the university’s on-campus housing. Now there are so many students who want to live on campus that dorms meant for two are housing three.

“It just so happened this year instead of using having a 50-100 bed problem, it’s in the hundreds,” Associate Vice President for Partnerships at the University of Kentucky, Heath Price.

With more UK students than ever wanting to live on campus, securing a room is not a guarantee.

“There is a strong encouragement to apply for housing, but there is also a lot of communication that what you see might not be fully available,” said Price.

UK says they ran into the problem with a large enrollment of first-year students and an increased number of returning students on campus. Their solution was the “tri-it” program. The university is taking two-bedroom suites and adding a bunk bed to make them for three people.

The “tri-it” program includes about 550 rooms.

Those who applied early lucked out.

The lion’s share of the feedback up until this point has been, you know, we can make this work. A lot of students have taken us up on it, I think in the future it will be interesting to see students who select this as an option just from a price perspective,” said Price.

We are told that UK students who are put into these forced triple situations are saving some money on their living expenses to make up for the fact that they are triple in the first place.

UK says while the reaction to the change has been mixed, they say they have been able to give every student who requested on-campus housing a bed to sleep in.

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