Growing enrollments affects on campus living

Due to the steadily increasing enrollment rate of each freshmen class, more and more issues on the University of Mississippi campus continue to come to light. We have come across the issue of parking/transportation, Greek Life, classroom areas, dining and now housing conflicts.

With the upcoming freshmen class maintaining it’s size, it has taken over all on-campus housing options previously offered to sophomores and juniors.

Traditional all girls freshmen dorm, Martin Hall.

I spoke with freshman Ole Miss Opportunity Scholar, Mary Beth Maloney. She currently lives in Martin Hall, and due to her scholarship, she is required to live on-campus for four consecutive years. “When I received this scholarship, I was glad to oblige by this weird rule until they announced that, Crosby, a residence hall typically housing sophomore girls, was now limited to freshmen only due to the increasing enrollment of their class,” says Maloney.

Maloney claims that she was going to live in Crosby next year with friends she had made in her sorority, but now she is having to reside in Northgate with “three complete strangers with no control over the situation.”

Like many other students attending college on scholarships, she cannot afford to lose her scholarship. She says, “I know I have to comply with what the university wants, but they have barely tried to work with people like me to make their college experience the best it could be.”

Part of the reason believed to make enrollments at schools like Ole Miss sky rocket is that other schools around Georgia and Texas do not accept their in state students. The majority of their student body is made up of people from different places. Ole Miss has one of the cheapest out of state tuitions across the nation, so it’s usually a top pick for people living around the SEC region.

Is it fair to let upcoming classes control the future of the universities current students? Many would say no. It comes down to the room our campus can provide for everyone. Having Ole Miss grow each year would be great if there was enough room to equally take care of everyone in a traditional fashion.

Junior RA Kristin Hodges explains how the university plans to handle the growing enrollment. She claims that with each year and the new changes the increases bring, conflicts seem to increase also. “They’re trying their hardest to come up with a solution to make everyone happy,” says Hodges. “But when you’re talking about thousands of people, there’s really no telling when that solution is going to come around.”