Marshall University’s Office of Housing and Residence Life is preparing for the possibility of having to use temporary housing arrangements in the fall due to overflow.

Mistie Bibbee, director of Housing and Residence Life, said the university has been preparing for this possibility since early in the Spring 2025 semester.

“We have been preparing since when we started upper-class room selection in the January-February time frame,” Bibbee said. “Knowing that last year’s numbers were tight, we anticipated enrollment growth again this year.”

Bibbee said the office has decreased the number of single rooms available to create more space.

“We did lessen the amount of single rooms available that we have in our standard halls like Towers and Buskirk that are double rooms that we sell as singles,” Bibbee said. “We lessened that amount so we have more double rooms available, so that way, we could accommodate more requests.”

Bibbee said Housing and Residence Life also made the decision to reduce the credit hour requirement for residency requirement releases several times throughout the spring semester to allow more students to live off campus to free up space.

In addition to making it easier for students to live off campus, Bibbee said the office has been contacting upper-class students and incoming freshmen who are registered for housing but do not have class schedules to confirm their intent to stay in housing.

“We’ve sent them communication saying, ‘Unless you enroll in classes or let us know that you intend to enroll in classes, we will not be giving you a housing assignment,’” Bibbee said.

Bibbee said there is currently an overflow of between 25 to 30 students who may be placed in temporary housing arrangements. She said this is a substantial improvement from the figure given in a message to resident advisors at the beginning of July that said there was an overflow of 180 students.

“When we had given, at the beginning of the month, the RAs an update, we had said that we were currently looking at about 180 and everyone, you know, freaked out, but we know that number will go down,” Bibbee said. “We knew that, but everybody latched on to that 180 number and that became the reality for the world, but here we are today and it’s more around 25 to 30.”

Bibbee said potential temporary housing arrangements include conversions of study rooms and assigning roommates to RAs.

“We have some rooms in Towers that were study rooms. We made some renovations to those over the summer, so they could be used as temporary housing. Some of the RAs were notified because they traditionally are in rooms by themselves that are typically double rooms,” Bibbee said. “They could have a temporary roommate as well. So, those options are on the table at the moment.”

Bibbee said the renovations made to study areas in Towers include the replacement of the window walls with sheet rock walls and replacement of the glass doors with wood doors to allow for privacy.

Students who are placed in temporary housing will receive a $50 credit to their housing bill per week they’re in temporary housing as compensation. RAs who are placed with a roommate will receive $50 in Herd Points per week.

Bibbee said the number of overflow students may continue to change as cancellations and new applications for housing come in.

“Last year, we had prepared all of these as well, then we had everyone in permanent spaces before move-in,” Bibbee said. “My dream is that we can make that happen again this year.”

Bibbee said the university is looking at multiple options for permanent solutions to address housing shortages in the future, but no concrete plans have been established.

“You know, as we’ve gone through the beginning stages, we’ve had a committee on campus that involves some staff and students where we were ensuring to get student feedback,” Bibbee said. “Talking about different things that they are looking for in their housing experience, so that’s all being taken in consideration as the institution weighs the next steps. We have some long-term and some short-term things that we’re looking at that will hopefully kind of alleviate some of the housing compression in the future.”

Ashton Pack can be contacted at [email protected].