The Year the Ghosts Showed Up

By Ezra Bowen

A surprise enrollment surge triggers a campus housing crunch

After counting noses for fall registration, a fair number of colleges are just beginning to come out of shock. The U.S. Department of Education had been signaling that enrollments would be on a downslide as the supply of 18-year-olds shrank from a 1979 high of 4.3 million toward 3.2 million in 1994. But when the students showed up last month, some of the crowds clamoring for Lebensraum were so outsize that dozens of schools had to scramble to find beds for everyone.

Boston University, confronted with a 13% surplus of 496 new students, put up most of the spillover for two weeks at the Sheraton Boston. Eventually more conventional quarters were scrounged up, and B.U. swallowed a $200,000 tab. The University of California, Santa Cruz, counted some 200 freshmen above the normal entering class of 1,340. The school handled the crush in part with a freshly bulldozed trailer park, where some 30 students are currently making do with their mobile digs. The rest were shoehorned in everywhere from the gym, where ten to 20 students checked in every night in the first few weeks for an issue of bedding, to converted dormitory lounges with beds trundled in to create communal pads. "I was kind of bummed out about it," says Freshman Robin Chase. "But it's pretty nice, they gave us a nice space."

Despite the push, there were signs that this fall's boomlet was only a spotty phenomenon. Most institutions in the South and the Rocky Mountain states were doing the slow business that had been predicted nationwide. On the other hand, many of the first-choice colleges, such as Stanford, the University of Chicago and the Ivies, have enrolled more freshmen than expected.

College officials hazard varied reasons for their windfalls. "The economy is doing better," suggests Boston University Administrator David Hollowell, "and parents seem to feel comfortable paying for private schools." Moreover, admissions deans were counting on so-called summer melt from students who keep their options open by accepting places at several colleges. Some deans underestimated the number who would actually come. "The ghosts showed up," says Middlebury's associate admissions director, Herbert Dalton. In addition, at some schools fewer upperclassmen are leaving to make room. The dropout may be fading out. In today's tough job market, observes Dartmouth Admissions Director Richard Jaeger, "there seems to be a growing sense of urgency to start college and stay in college."

Compounding the attendance bulge is a new college trend. "Right now," says Santa Cruz Housing Services Director Jerry Walters, "living on campus in dormitories is in." Off-campus, do-your-thing pads have given way to the practical fact that campus quarters tend to be cheaper and more convenient. "Students want to be closer to campus and involved in campus activity," says B.U. Housing Director Marcus Buckley. "They want to study and not worry about the heat or their next meal." The bottom line, again, may be the reality of getting ready for that job. Says Dean Mary Ackerman of Macalester College in St. Paul: "There is more concern about careers, about what awaits them after graduation." But beware too much explanation. Next year--or the next--the ghosts could vanish, students may decide to live under mushrooms, and college dorms could become as depopulated as statistical experts have been predicting all along.

--By Ezra Bowen.

Reported by William Sonzski/Boston and Mary Wormley/Los Angeles

With reporting by William Sonzski, Mary Wormley