Amid housing concerns, CT lawmakers ask: Can UConn sustain its growth?

As the University of Connecticut welcomes 6,500 first year students —  its largest cohort yet — and reports total enrollment of nearly 25,000 undergraduates across all its campuses, lawmakers are expressing heightened fears that the institution is expanding too fast without the proper resources to sustain the growth.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, met with university leadership in early spring for what Looney called a “broad ranging discussion,” on issues including funding, UConn’s role in the state economy and other related matters. There, Looney and Duff said they flagged initial concerns about the university’s long-term planning, which they’ve since reiterated after reports that hundreds of students have been waitlisted for housing in Stamford and Storrs.

The two lawmakers put out a call to action Wednesday for the university to prioritize an expansion of housing and establish a long-term plan for growth.

“UConn ought to be in a position to build more housing on campus, to accommodate more in-state students,” Looney told The Connecticut Mirror. “Obviously, we’re not asking them to in any way compromise their admission standards, but we think there ought to be a concerted effort to bring more kids to the UConn campus. Part of it is that there are [students] we know who don’t get admitted to Storrs, and get admitted to one of the branch campuses. While that’s an attractive option for some, there are others who then decided to go out-of-state rather than go to a branch campus.”

Both senators raised concerns about students opting to attend out-of-state universities and said the state economy takes a hit when Connecticut grown students leave.

“We make a lot of investments in pre-K through 12th grade. … We invest billions of dollars into children every year and we don’t want to have that investment walk away,” Duff said. “It’s a great thing to see the growth of the demand to go to UConn, it’s something we should be celebrating. But, we have to make sure we’re not losing out students to other states because the chance of them coming back to our workforce is smaller than the students who decide to stay here.”

UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said the university “strongly agrees that the success of UConn is firmly linked to Connecticut’s success, and vice versa,” and that there’s a commitment to “doing all it can to enroll, house and graduate ever-increasing numbers of exceptional students from across the state, nation, and world who are the workforce of the future and play a major role in driving Connecticut’s economy.”

The university recently opened a 657-bed residence hall at its flagship campus in Storrs and plans to open new residence halls in downtown Hartford and Stamford, Reitz said, adding that waitlist numbers have declined and will continue to decrease because “hundreds of students cancel their housing assignments late every year, either because they choose other arrangements or rescind their enrollment decision.

“All students who accepted enrollment and met the deadline to apply for on-campus housing at Storrs were accommodated with a room assignment over the summer,” Reitz said. “We are excited about abundant private student-oriented housing developments near the Storrs campus which will help address housing demands going forward.

A $4.4 billion bond package approved by the legislature earlier this year would authorize a new seven-year building program at UConn that would give the university up to $625 million in new financing over that time — plus another $67 million in previous bond authorizations that haven’t been used to date.

These funds would mostly support capital projects, including construction of a new science facility and renovations to the Gant Science complex on the main campus in Storrs.

The state government has been launching major multi-year capital programs for the university since 1995, and each one carries the name of the first: “ UConn 2000 .” Over the last three decades, state funding has become a smaller share of the university’s operating budget, but in return, its investments into capital projects has encouraged higher education institutions to grow enrollment and generate revenue that way.

But even then, there’s been an ongoing battle between Gov. Ned Lamont, state legislators and higher education officials about the state’s role in funding as the end of federal pandemic relief dollars loom.

For months, administrators at UConn and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system had pleaded with state officials for more financial support even as the governor has remained steadfast on the idea that they knew the funds were temporary.

Lamont’s office did not immediately respond to comment, but earlier this year the governor’s administration had charged public colleges and universities with not doing enough to cut costs.

The administration ultimately spared higher ed from efficiency cuts to balance the state budget, but told college leaders to start preparing immediately for the next budget cycle, which doesn’t begin until July 2025 and is when nearly $700 million in temporary funds used to prop up the current budget will likely have vanished.

About $310 million of those temporary funds are being shared among the University of Connecticut, the regional state universities and community colleges. More than half of that temporary money involves emergency COVID relief grants Congress approved for Connecticut in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan Act. The rest involves a portion of the large state budget surpluses achieved over the past two years.

Next year, the state legislature will be tasked with putting together a new budget and part of how much aid UConn will receive will be dependent on the university’s ability to put together a long-term plan, Duff said.

“We need to see a plan [from UConn leadership]. We need a plan we can agree on and understand what they want to do and how to do it,” Duff told the CT Mirror. “We should be working together on this. This is something that needs immediacy, and it’s not something to get to in two to three years. It’s critical now, and it’s been critical for a number of years, but especially with record enrollment this year.”

Looney added that he hopes to see a follow up from the university, particularly in regards to “more fundraising on their own behalf.”

The bond bill approved earlier this year tied fundraising goals to the authorizations the university would be eligible for, with at least $100 million in philanthropic commitments over the next eight years ensuring the institution is eligible for the full $625 million.

“There’s very active UConn alumni all over the country. The status of the university has greatly become more elevated in the last 20-something years, and UConn is now a top-ranked university. We think that should translate into more alumni giving,” Looney said. “We think that it’s unfortunate that they lag behind many other universities of similar prestige in terms of the degree of fundraising that is generated by the university itself.”

Staff writer Keith M. Phaneuf contributed to this report.