NEWS

JSU students will get housing by the weekend

Clay Chandler
The Clarion-Ledger

The housing gridlock that initially left more than 300 Jackson State students without a place to live during Welcome Week will be solved by the weekend, the school’s president said.

By Thursday morning, 42 students who had registered for campus housing and were eligible to receive it had not yet received an assignment, Carolyn Meyers said during Thursday’s College Board meeting. Those students should be set by the weekend, she said. Classes start Monday.

“We’ve had some challenges housing people,” Meyers said. “We’re still working on it.”

Since the peak, Meyers said the university has placed 100 students per day in housing. She did not elaborate on what caused the issues. “There were things we could have done better,” she said. “Obviously, balls were dropped. Now the silver lining that you’re not aware of that I am is that everybody from every division has worked flat-out to serve our students. We’ll get back and make adjustments as needed.”

To handle increasing enrollment, Jackson State last year began leasing a 444-bed apartment complex adjacent to campus to house students. In January, the College Board gave the school approval to borrow up to $10 million to buy it. The school also began leasing last year a 244-bed hotel close to the Mississippi State Fairgrounds for the same purpose. The school pays $800,000 in annual rent.

In March 2014, the College Board gave JSU the go-ahead for a $48 million, 628-bed housing complex, dining hall and conference center on campus. That facility is scheduled for completion sometime next year.

Jackson State officials expect enrollment for the fall semester to top 10,000, which would be a school record. Last year’s enrollment of just more than 9,500 was also a record. The freshman class will top 1,500, itself a record. There is enough space to house 2,800 students, a 14 percent increase from the 2014-2015 academic year.

Contact Clay Chandler at (601) 961-7264 or cchandler@gannett.com. Follow @claychand on Twitter.