For the third straight year, UTC officials are moving students who signed up to live on campus into a local hotel.
“We’ve had this challenge for a couple years now,” University of Tennessee at Chattanooga spokesman Chuck Cantrell said. “It’s a great challenge to have because that means more students want to come and take advantage of the opportunities here.”
With UTC’s 2,846 on-campus housing spots full, an estimated 110 overflow students are scheduled to start moving into the Chattanooga Choo Choo today, with school starting next week.
Students will pay the same semester rate – $2,925 – for the hotel as for a room at South Campus Apartments, Cantrell said.
A “special rate” was arranged with the university, said Beth Ayers, an assistant guest services manager at the hotel.
UTC Housing and Residence Life, a self-sustaining auxiliary service that receives no state funding, will incur some of the cost to pay for the hotel rooms, Cantrell said.
Students who have been assigned to the hotel have the choice to opt out of their housing contract with a full refund, he said.
Traditionally, a certain number of students registered for housing are no-shows, get homesick or drop out, Cantrell said, so students will move into on-campus rooms as they become available.
“We’ve never had anyone in hotels by January,” he said.
Last year, 250 students – 200 at The Chattanoogan and 50 at the Sheraton Read House – lived off campus at the beginning of the school year. That number dropped by roughly 100 about a month and a week into school.