They got a university spot — now they’re vying for a bed. Why some Ontario schools won’t be able to house students this fall

“This is the place I need to be,” said Levy, whose confidence in her future path stands in stark contrast to many other imminent high-school graduates who are still weighing their university options.

Levy’s decisiveness might well land her a spot in the new building, Huron’s largest, spread out over five floors and containing single rooms with adjoining ensuites. Room assignments — to be handed out in July — will be determined on a first-come, first-served basis.

But even if by some wild chance 300 others best her for Burnlea, Levy won’t have to worry about a bed. For the first time in five years, despite double-digit enrolment growth, Huron is able to offer a guarantee of residence to every first-year student who wants one.

That’s not the case at every Ontario university. A Toronto Star analysis of campus housing at 22 of the province’s publicly funded institutions found that six just don’t have the space to guarantee — including Queen’s University for the first time in many years — and two don’t have housing at all. Three-quarters of the schools are in construction mode or are actively seeking housing solutions. But the current number of university-built beds in the province covers only about 11 per cent of that student population.

Throw in thousands who are attending public and private colleges, and that’s a big cohort looking for an affordable place to call home — in the middle of a national housing crisis.

Critics have blamed said crisis partially on post-secondary institutions. With a government freeze on funding and tuition, some schools, particularly colleges, dramatically increased the enrolment of international students, but there was no plan to prepare for the housing they would need. 

Stories of students lodged in hotels, crammed into basement apartments, facing unscrupulous landlords and rising rents have been part of the recent narrative.

And so, the demand to live on campus has been increasing.

“We know the request for housing has gone up and our ability to meet that has gone down,” said Steve Orsini, president and chair of the Council of Ontario Universities (COU).

In the past academic year, universities were able to fill only 80 per cent of housing requests from any level of student, down from what historically has been 90 per cent, Orsini said.

Enrolment in Ontario universities has more than doubled since 2000, to well over a half-million. Orsini noted some 6,400 residential spaces have been added in the last five years, and 10,800 more are expected in the next five.

While most Ontario universities are maintaining the first-year guarantee, “even that is going to be more challenging in the future,” he added.

That promise of a bed brings no small relief to young people moving away from home for the first time.

“If I had to be off campus, I’d be completely on my own. It’s a big jump,” said Levy. “I will still be 17 when I go to university, so having residence is a good transition.”

But building a residence is not cheap — Huron’s Burnlea cost $61 million — nor is it generally in a university’s wheelhouse of expertise. A flood of recent government housing announcements around planning and funding may help, experts say.

But ultimately, is it a university’s responsibility to put a roof over its students’ heads?

“It’s a really important social question to debate: Is there a societal value in providing housing for young people at that stage in life as they learn?” said Barry Craig, Huron’s president and vice-chancellor. “We know there is a cost if we don’t provide it. We’re seeing the wreckage of that now.”

Why on-campus living matters

The offer to study economics at Queen’s University arrived earlier this year; still, Alex felt unsettled. It wasn’t his first choice. The Toronto teen had his sights on Queen’s commerce and a looming date: April 15.

For many years — except early in the pandemic — Queen’s guaranteed residence for all new undergraduates. But due to renovations and “modest enrolment growth,” the Kingston, Ont. school has changed its policy: An offer of admission by April 15 guaranteed a bed; anything afterwards put an applicant at the mercy of a lottery to gain access to the residence selection process.

Alex, who didn’t want his full name published out of fear of jeopardizing his status, commiserated in an online forum with other Queen’s hopefuls also perplexed about the policy change. He didn’t know whether the residence guarantee that came with economics would apply to a commerce offer if and once it lands. Finally, after reaching out to the university, Alex was relieved to discover it would.

“Living in residence is a big part of the university experience,” he said. “I was really worried that I would be missing out on (it), and that was a big part of my decision (to go) to Queen’s.”

The university, which has received 57,180 undergraduate applications for the fall, says more than 90 per cent of offers went out by April 15.

“We expect this approach (to the guarantee) will continue in the coming years,” said a Queen’s spokesperson, who added that the university will gradually expand its capacity through renovations and increasing the amount of university-owned off-campus housing.

Meanwhile, according to the Star’s survey, shovels are in the ground at nine other campuses, including McMaster which, when it opens its 1,300-bed Lincoln Alexander Hall in 2026, will be able to extend its residence guarantee to all first-year students, not just those who meet current qualifications. Eight other institutions say they are actively looking at solutions.

At the University of Toronto, Oak House, a new 508-bed residence at Spadina and Sussex avenues, was originally supposed to welcome students this fall. Issues with hydro has pushed the opening to May 2025.

But the university, which has just over 10,000 beds, said it’ll have no difficulty in delivering on the first-year guarantee, thanks to its purchase of a stake in the privately owned student residence CampusOne. As part of the deal, UofT has first dibs on all 980 beds there and expects to fill them.

“We are being as creative and strategic as we can,” said Scott Mabury, UofT’s vice-president of operations and real estate partnerships.

“Even though universities are facing significant financial challenges,” said COU’s Orsini, “this guarantee,” which has been offered by some universities for decades, “has been so important that they’ve been incurring costs to deliver on it.”

As least 10 Ontario universities are currently projecting an operating budget deficit. Without direct government funding for residences, universities have been taking on debt and increasingly turning to public-private partnerships.

While it is possible to make some revenue off ancillary services like parking and food — meal plans are often mandatory — it can take decades to amortize the cost. There is also the challenge of the student population being transitory.

“Universities can make much more money by charging tuition and teaching students than (by) building houses that aren’t necessarily going to make money or compete (with) housing available in a city,” said Tim Brunet, an adjunct professor of economics at the University of Windsor.

Residence fees, which range from about $7,000 to $20,000, depending on style of room and meal plan, help fund wraparound services, including staff and activities.

“If people just look at it as ... just giving them a place to live,” Orsini said, “they’re missing out all the other attributes and benefits that go with campus living.”

While not all first-year students choose to live on campus, there is consensus that the benefits found there can’t be duplicated elsewhere. And it’s not just the ability to roll out of bed minutes before class. Such housing is proving to have a profound impact on academic achievement.

“It matters a lot,” said Shelagh McCartney, associate professor in the school of urban and regional planning at Toronto Metropolitan University. In soon-to-be-published research, she and some colleagues discovered that student residences, even the type of unit, can lead to significantly better grades and high retention rates.

If you want to set a student up for success, McCartney said, put them in a single room on a dormitory floor that shares a washroom. “The bathroom matters. … If you are standing next to someone brushing your teeth, you are likely to feel more intimately connected to them.” That helps form the basis for friendships and networks that students can rely on when times get difficult.

Making the beds

When UofT’s Oak House finally opens its doors, it will have been a decade from conception to occupancy.

It was a joint partnership with a housing developer — an approach UofT VP Mabury said is a blueprint for the future. “We’re not going to do a student residence without the discipline and knowledge that comes from a private-sector developer.”

Still, Oak House was a lengthy and difficult process, Mabury said, complicated by neighbourhood opposition, which resulted in a significant reduction of floors and beds.

Universities are hopeful that a series of measures announced by the province in early April will speed up the process and allow for greater density.

Bill 185 “will help address student housing needs by reducing regulatory hurdles and establishing clear guidelines to increase the availability of safe and affordable housing options for postsecondary students,” a Ministry of Colleges and Universities spokesperson told the Star.

Earlier this year, the federal government also announced low-cost loans to build more student housing. It has also put a cap on international study permits, which may alleviate pressures on housing.

“While institutions are autonomous entities and responsible for ensuring on-campus student residences are available to students, addressing the housing crisis is a long-term strategy that requires collaboration at all levels of government, stakeholders, postsecondary institutions and students,” the Ministry of Colleges and Universities said.

Orsini agrees. “The housing challenge is so significant, we all have a shared responsibility to ensure that we can help address the housing challenges. (Universities) are trying to do our part, by managing enrolment growth.”

A report last year by national think-tank Smart Prosperity Institute found that, between 2014 and 2022, international student enrolment nearly doubled at Ontario universities and nearly tripled at colleges.

“The enrolment decisions that colleges, universities, and other schools make can substantially increase the community’s need and demand for housing,” according to the report. 

Residences obviously help take students out of the rental market, freeing up space there. Craig says Huron’s 300 new beds relieves some of the pressure in the housing market in London, Ont., which hosts students from Western, its affiliates and Fanshawe College.

Jay Deshmukh, parent of Queen’s student Varun Upadhye, who just wrapped up his first year in residence at West Campus, said the most difficult thing her son went through was securing off-campus housing for the fall.

“He had a wretched time,” said Deshmukh, a Toronto architect who focuses on the education sector. “Everybody has (a request for proposal) to develop student housing. I can’t tell you how many we have responded to.”

By Thanksgiving, only five weeks into the academic year, Upadhye was already stressed about next year’s housing.

Six leads fell through, scuppered by either roommate situations or landlords’ unreasonable demands. At one point, Deshmukh suggested he apply to be residence staff so he could live on campus, but he refused.

“For kids in Ontario, and Queen’s in particular, the idea you that live on campus and then move off is a rite of passage,” Deshmukh said, “so it is difficult for them to imagine still living on campus.”

The majority of students tend to want to move into the broader community after their first year, said Mabury. “So, should we be in the business of providing housing for our students? The answer is an emphatic yes,” he said, adding that UofT is planning to diversify its housing to appeal to graduates and families.

“Having students live on campus under the umbrella of the University of Toronto, with our support, is better for everybody.”