For more information and context, read last week’s article titled “Transparency and Trepidation: College Communication with Students”.
On Wednesday, April 8, an email was sent out to students notifying them that the college “[has] decided to align single and double housing costs to differentiate pricing between single and double rooms.” This comes after an email sent on April 3 by the Dean of Students, stating that housing costs will not increase until the 2027 academic year.
Single-room housing will now be an extra $400 per semester, starting fall 2026, according to Vice President of Finance and Strategy & Operations Tim Leslie and the college’s CFO Elizabeth Moore. This news comes after some students have already registered for housing.
The reason listed as explanatory for this change is claimed “to align with industry standards, promote equity by ensuring students pay in proportion to their living space and privacy, and better manage demand and housing resources while supporting the maintenance and improvement of residence halls” per the email sent by Leslie and Moore.
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Based on current housing capacity, every double – excluding Greek life housing, special interest housing, and Peet Hall – accounts for around 460 individuals.
Last year in the Fall, around 825 students were living on campus total, including all types of housing.
If all doubles are filled to capacity, depending on enrollment, nearly 300 students would have no other option but to reside in single rooms, adding an extra $240,000 for the college next year alone. There are around 415 single dorms on campus, so that number would increase at full capacity.
Of course, there are many factors like accommodations, Resident Assistant living, enrollment, and other extenuating circumstances that will increase or decrease how much the college makes from the housing fees decision.
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In a document attached to the email, titled “FAQs – Single Room Pricing,” Leslie and associated faculty restate the equity claim– the “‘flat rate’ model often means that students in double rooms are indirectly subsidizing the higher square footage and increased privacy of single rooms. This new structure ensures that students pay a rate that more accurately reflects their specific living environment,” and “Single rooms are in high demand and represent a higher “footprint” per student in terms of maintenance and utility costs.”
Associated faculty repeat the notion of equity even later in the FAQ in response to the poor communication from administration about the increase in housing, saying, “[t]he decision to increase room rates this year [rather than next year] is the correct decision to align pricing with industry standards, promote equity, and better support the maintenance and improvement of residence halls.”
College leadership acknowledges that they, at one point, had aligned with Dean of Students Ron Watson in delaying the price increase until the 2027 academic year, claiming “the leadership team reconsidered our decision [to charge different prices for single and double rooms] and the Dean of Students sent a communication indicating that room rates would remain flat. This reconsideration was a mistake[.]”
Additionally, the FAQ also states that the money from this increase goes towards “the necessary revenue to reinvest back into the maintenance and modernization of all our residence halls.” Notably, the 2025-2026 overall tuition increase claimed to “continue to invest in the spaces… that make Beloit exceptional”; these spaces apparently did not include any sort of housing updates to current dorms despite Bushnell’s “huge patches of mold”, as Claire Winter’28, arts editor of The Round Table and Bushnell resident, says.
The most recent version of the FAQ also ensures that students with single-room related accommodations will not pay the higher rate, but the standard double rate: “[s]tudents with housing-related disability accommodations will continue to work with the LEADS office to ensure their housing accommodations are met.” This email was sent after the deadline to get housing accommodations for the 2026-2027 school year.
College leadership’s claims in the past have not been consistent about how money is distributed. From the 2025-2026 tuition increase email, college leadership claims that the tuition increase for that academic year would be used “to provide a transformative educational experience” and reinforce Beloit’s “[commitment] to providing a superior education”– yet, as of September 2025, the college has lapsed in licensure for numerous teaching programs.
The news regarding the housing changes have come during a time of overall inconsistency in communication between the college and its students, as covered in last week’s article.
Student leaders organized a petition, demanding that the college reverse the policy. The petition states: “[s]tudents matter more than profit! The student body should not pay for the mistakes of the administration, who make six-figure salaries, including Eric Boynton, who made nearly $400,000 in his first year as president.”
At the time of writing (Sunday, April 12) the petition had almost 600 signatures. The organizers’ goal is 1,000 signatures. Starting on Monday, April 13, at 9 a.m., there will be a sit-in in front of President Boynton’s office to demand a reversal of the change.
Featured image: Wikipedia
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