New housing policy changes are coming to Texas Woman’s University in fall 2024.
Beth Eppinger, the assistant director for Housing Administrative Services, listed three major revisions to the university’s rules: a lottery system for admission into the Lowry Woods apartments, housing ineligibility for graduate students and an in-person class quota to qualify for housing. In an email sent on Jan. 4, TWU Housing and Dining announced that they made these decisions in anticipation of increased enrollment for the 2024-2025 academic year.
“The university is predicting one of its largest incoming classes, and therefore, that increases housing demand,” Eppinger said.
Eppinger elaborated that this rise in demand is critical because at the beginning of fall 2023, campus housing already opened at 101 percent capacity. To prepare for the expectedly-greater influx of students in fall 2024, the university seeks to create space by excluding graduate students from campus housing after the summer semester and enforcing a rule where at least 51 percent of residential students’ credit hours need to be from in-person classes. Creating the Lowry Woods lottery follows the same line of reasoning.
“We looked at all these numbers, and when we look at our upperclassmen — our juniors and seniors who are not required to live on campus — their typical location is Lowry Woods,” Eppinger said. “Some previously lived in the towers, but we need to have space in the towers for our sophomores, and so our juniors and seniors who want to live on campus will be part of a lottery system.”
With an application deadline of Feb. 29, the lottery determined which individuals or groups of roommates can make it into Lowry Woods. Students entered into the lottery were notified of their status on March 1, identifying them as waitlisted or eligible to select a room. In order to address students who do not get campus housing, Eppinger said that TWU is currently reviewing proposals from off-campus properties to provide an additional 300 beds for students. In the meantime, the university offers resources on housing through its housing website, workshops from the Student Money Management Center and an upcoming apartment fair on March 19, where students may browse their options for housing in Denton.
Senior psychology pre-occupational therapy student Alannah Jaca stated that these new policies, specifically the ineligibility of graduate students to live on campus, made her search for housing as a soon-to-be graduate student more difficult.
“I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about apartments and living near the campus because I’ve always lived on campus,” Jaca, who is from Houston, said. “But then they changed it, which meant that for the past three months, all I did was look for apartments and figure out what their prices were. Online, they would say one thing [about] their base prices, but when you go inside the actual tours, they tell you a different one, and it’s actually a lot more pricey.”
Jaca also noted that the March confirmation date for the Lowry Woods lottery could be too late for waitlisted students to begin finding other apartments because they are “selling out right now” — a factor that she stated has made her search for housing stressful in the past few weeks.
“As a grad student, I technically have it a little bit easier than the undergrad students because the undergrad students still have a chance [at housing], but it’s not a guaranteed thing, which sucks,” Jaca said.
In spite of these changes, some constants will remain in housing at TWU.
“Changes to Lowry and who can still live in Lowry does not impact family housing, so our undergraduate families are still welcome to live there,” Eppinger said. “Because that is a big piece of the university’s identity, we are not doing away with family housing. We are not increasing family housing either. We have 42 family units and we will keep our 42 family units.”
Jocelyn Truong can be reached via email at jtruong1@twu.edu.
Be First to Comment