The housing assignment process is in full swing, and USC seems to be singing the same old song — plenty of applicants, no spaces.
The story differs a little this year. USC Housing saw a rise in upperclassman applicants, with 800 more requests than last year. The current total of 2,700 applicants outstrips the 1,800 beds allocated for upperclassmen by Housing, pushing the traditional divide between requests and available space further into the red.
This shortage is just another example of the growing pains that USC has been experiencing for the past few years. Space will continue to be an issue at this university as freshman classes grow and development projects work their way around our campus. What this rise in upperclassman requests should tell USC is that students are ready and willing to pay the costs of on-campus housing for the experience that it offers. Faced with the often lower prices and improved resources of off-campus housing, upperclassmen are still showing a strong attachment to this campus and the personal opportunities for growth it provides them. USC should honor that devotion by providing as much as it can in the way of available space.
To that end, we need to continue talking about plans to grow USC’s campus. In classrooms, our student union and housing, the problem of space is not going away, nor will the university run the risk of developing too much, too soon. This growth in upperclassman requests is another in what is becoming a long series of reminders that more must be done to provide students with a modern campus that can accommodate growth in a healthy and productive fashion.