‘CRAMMED’; VCU cuts price for quad dorms, students say it’s not enough
Students sit in their 'quad' dorm room in Rhoads Hall on Sept. 14. The room was originally intended to house three students. Photo by Andrew Kerley.
Bryer Haywood, Contributing Writer
First-year computer science student Joseph Bellanti was only notified weeks before the start of the fall semester that an additional roommate would be squeezed into his Rhoads Hall dorm — turning a “triple” into a “quad.”
“It’s just pretty cramped,” Bellanti said. “There’s not a lot of space. I don’t think this room was made for four people.”
Bellanti is one of over 100 students at VCU who had their rooms converted over the summer to fit the university’s second largest freshman class in history, with more than 4,500 students arriving on campus.
The VCU Board of Visitors met on Sept. 11 and approved a rate reduction of roughly $500 for each student living in a “quad dorm,” bringing the price down to $7,645 for a nine-month lease.
“I don’t think [for] any price they should just shove an extra student, an extra book case in here, an extra fridge,” Bellanti said. “I don’t think it’s possible, but they did it.”
VCU has grappled with high admission rates for years, partially as a result of the university’s guaranteed admission policy for high school students with a 3.5 or higher GPA. Around 80 students in 2023 were housed off-campus at the Graduate Hotel due to a lack of space, according to ABC 8.
Many students are currently being housed in “overflow spaces” — lounges converted into dorms — in Gladding Residence Center. Additionally, some dorms meant for one, two or three people have been converted to house two, three and four people respectively.
VCU spokesperson Brian McNeill said all students who requested on campus housing this year were able to be accommodated in existing residence halls. McNeill also referred to the plan for a new residence hall on West Grace Street as a means to meet the housing demand.
The project is currently in the design phase and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 — adding 1,000 beds.
On a VCU Facebook group, some parents are posting that their kids are being “crammed into living spaces that are too small.”
One posted that their child has a desk under a loft bed, making it hard for them to study. Another parent expressed disappointment in VCU for the lack of transparency about housing assignments.
Jacob Carlson, a first-year psychology and criminal justice student, lives in an eight-person suite in GRC III designed for four people.
“We all share one toilet, two showers and two sinks and we don’t have desks,” Carlson said. “Mathematically, the reduced rate is a justifiable amount of money for cramming eight people into a space for four people.”
These rooms are called “double efficiency suites,” according to Carlson. The spaces were created to accommodate the large influx of new students. Carlson said he was not provided a night stand in his dorm and fashioned a makeshift desk out of other furniture. He also said it was difficult to keep the room clean given the lack of space.
First-year psychology student Narah Parker lives in Brandt Hall. She said she thinks the $500 reduced rate is not worth it for students living in overflow spaces, and disagrees with the university’s plan to build a new residence hall.
“I think that they should use the space we have [Johnson Hall] better instead of building a whole new building,” Parker said. “Will the new dorm even be enough?”
Executive Editor Andrew Kerley contributed to this story.
