Purdue University cites historic enrollment and housing shortage as reasons for wanting to “significantly” reduce its admissions rate

West Lafayette, Indiana – Just over a month remained before the autumn semester officially began, and 700 Purdue students received new housing assignments. They retaliated right away by gathering more than 1,100 signatures on a petition.

A student, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed they signed an agreement for a single bedroom in October but found out on Wednesday that they would have a roommate via email.

“We recognize that these changes may require students to adjust their housing plans,” the email stated. “Approximately 11% of returning students will have their housing assignment changed or have an additional occupant assigned to a selected space.”

Certain students were informed that they would be moving, while others would need to accommodate an additional person in rooms not intended for that purpose.

“I fear that continued cramming of multiple students into places that are not properly accommodated is just going to provide very bad experiences for incoming students or returning students,” the anonymous student shared.

After facing immediate criticism, the university released a statement the next day offering the impacted students the choice to accept the suggested alternative in exchange for a $4,000 decrease in their housing price, terminate their contracts, or preserve their original terms.

“Although we targeted smaller enrollment and admitted a lower percentage of undergraduate applicants for fall 2024 than ever, during the crucial late April and May decision-making period this spring, students voted with their feet to come to Purdue, accepting their offers of admission at historically unprecedented levels,” the university’s statement said. “This resulted in more students than ever before requesting housing in University Residences.”

“From what I am aware of, this has been an ongoing issue regarding specifically an over-admittance of freshmen without having the housing actually there for them,” the anonymous student added.

The previous autumn’s total enrollment topped 52,000. That represents an increase of around 6,000 pupils from 2020.

“The rooms in Harrison, at least on that floor, are just meant for doubles but they’re squeezing three people into it,” said freshman Erika Chiommino while describing her living arrangement.

Erika Chiommino, an incoming freshman, claimed that her summer housing arrangement wasn’t what she had expected.

“There’s only two closets, so for the third person it’s like, oh, where do they put their clothes and things like that? But we ended up being fine because we were able to share the space between the three of us,” Chiommino said.

The president of Purdue University, Mung Chiang, stated on social media that the university’s fall 2024 undergraduate admissions rate was the lowest in its history and that the university aimed to enroll 300 fewer freshmen than its usual goal. Still, 1,600 more seniors in high school unintentionally committed to Purdue.

“Next year, new dorms approved last year will complete construction. And we will significantly further reduce the admissions rate, simply because housing and city capacities don’t grow as fast as demand for Purdue education,” Chiang said over social media. “But now, in addition to the hard work by many colleagues in securing many more beds throughout town as a first-resort answer since late May, we must further refine housing solutions to all Boilermaker students this Fall: new ones as well as returning students. All units at the university are working extra hard today, to come up with a better and the best answer.”

Our request for an interview was turned down by a university spokeswoman, who instead directed us to their initial statement.