Are they coming, or aren't they? UA's new housing policy backfires. (Update).

Last year, it seemed the University of Arizona was bursting at the seams: 500 students were placed in temporary spaces, residence hall lounges, and hotels, and all of the double rooms in one residence hall were tripled. Jumping on the problem, UA designed a spring housing policy to reverse the situation, but the new policy may have gone too far--300 vacancies resulted. Under the old plan, the school accommodated all incoming students who applied for housing by May 1, so there was no control over the number of people the school would commit to house.

"It just so happened that last year, we had 200 more return students than usual and 600 more freshman," says Jim Van Arsdel, director of Residence Life at the university.

The new policy closed UA housing to students who had lived on campus more than four semesters, and allowed only 1,000 existing residents to return to their on-campus housing this fall. Who knew that UA would have about 400 more cancellations this fall than last? Van Arsdel says the school will probably see a budget shortfall near $250,000. But it could have been worse: UA reduced the number of vacancies to 100 by offering "tripled" students double rooms at a higher rate.

Van Arsdel says, "My advice to other administrators is to take time to understand the relationship between enrollment management and housing. Risk needs to be considered, and you need some plan for how you might deal with a situation that just doesn't work out the way you think it's going to."