Editorial: Why are Pittsburgh college students staying in hotels instead of dorms?

College students can take the dorm experience seriously.

You can’t walk into Walmart or Target without hitting a wall of ready-for-campus furnishings and accessories. For many, the must-haves range from comforters and clothes baskets to microwaves and mini fridges. Social media is thick with inspiration pictures and decorating videos.

But not every student gets that experience.

Some universities are treating the school year like a plane bound for Vegas: they’re overbooking.

That means alternative accommodations are being brought into service. Students are being housed in makeshift dormitories made by drafting unconventional spaces into service.

In Pittsburgh, it means checking in to a hotel room.

The University of Pittsburgh is overflowing with freshmen after a record number of applications. As a result, Pitt has leased space to put 400 of them in other locations. Some will be in apartments on Dithridge Street. Others will be staying at the Hampton Inn on Hamlet Street.

On top of that, Pitt is converting its own existing facilities to accommodate another 300 beds.

But Pitt’s not alone. Point Park University is placing up to 90 freshmen at the Wyndham Grand hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh.

How does this happen? Students apply to more than one university and then weigh their options, picking the one that is the best fit. In turn, schools select more students than they need, knowing not every offer will be an admission. The problem? Sometimes more students than expected take the offer.

This keeps happening even as universities face falling enrollment rates.

In 2023, TribLive reported on huge declines in enrollment at Pitt and Penn State’s branch campuses. The numbers were contrasted by increases at the flagships. At Pitt, branch enrollment was down 36% in 2022 from 2010, about 2,500 students. Penn State’s branch enrollment was down by more than 10,000 students, about 30%.

Penn State may have addressed that this year by announcing the 2027 shuttering of several Commonwealth Campuses, including New Kensington and Fayette.

Point Park obviously doesn’t have the alternative locations, but it also hasn’t overshot the mark by the same margin as Pitt. It gives the impression that universities with broad, multi-campus reach are poaching from their own branches by over­accepting applications for their main campuses.

Maybe the solution to these overflow problems is better advertising the virtues of going to school in Greensburg or Johnstown.