Over 25% of UVU students live in BYU housing. This can create many problems including having to follow the BYU honor code, going to more BYU sponsored events than UVU sponsored events, living further away from UVU, and even having to move out during finals week, sometimes with nowhere to go.
My freshman year I lived at King Henry. There are a lot more housing options when looking near BYU, and they are generally cheaper because of the competition. There is also a stereotype of BYU housing being a better “social scene”. That is a big lie. There are plenty of UVU complexes that are more social that BYU ones. But these factors are part of the reason why over 8,000 UVU students live in BYU housing.
Most of them don’t know that it will cost them more time and money to come to school, possibly lower their school pride, and force them to move out during finals. As if finals week isn’t stressful enough, try packing everything you own and moving on top of that. So what can be done to fix these things?
Well until we get more housing close to UVU, students will still live by BYU, because there is simply not enough room for UVU students in Orem. UVU is the only university in the state without on campus housing. We are currently in our master planning process, where we decide as a university what future buildings we want and where they will go. This year is a crucial planning year because we are deciding what will go on the recently acquired 200 acres at Geneva. UVUSA is working to get dorms included in these plans. If you would like to be part of master planning please contact me by email.
We are also doing all we can to change our current situation. I have been working with Matt Chambers, the director of the REC program, to see how we can make it possible for students to not have to move out during finals. We are looking into making a separate contract, adding to the current BYU contract, or getting complexes to allow UVU students to pay for an extra week of living. We hope this will be an easy fix and will help the countless UVU students effected by housing be more successful during finals and not have the added burden of moving out at the same time.
This is one of the things we campaigned on, and we will continue to fight for our students.
Dylan Swarts
Student Body President
