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Short on Housing, U of Utah Will Board Students With Locals

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July 22, 2022

With about 600 students still lacking campus housing for the fall, the University of Utah is offering local alumni $5,000 per semester to board them, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The Home Away From Home program aims to place about 100 sophomores, juniors and seniors with alumni and others connected to the university who live within 25 miles of campus.

“This not only provides students places to live but also helps them forge relationships in the larger University of Utah community,” Bethany Hardwig of the Office of Alumni Relations said in a statement from the university.

Roughly 120,000 alumni live near campus. So far, 85 potential hosts have expressed interest, the Tribune reported.

Students and hosts alike will undergo background checks and fill out surveys about their interests and preferences, the statement said.

If the pilot program proves successful, the university will try to increase local placements to 1,000 students in fall 2023.

Susan H. Greenberg

Susan H. Greenberg is a senior editor at Inside Higher Ed. A career journalist and educator, she joined the publication in August 2021 after eight years in Vermont, where she freelanced and taught writing at Middlebury College and Champlain College. Prior to that, she spent 22 years writing and editing for Newsweek magazine, where she covered everything from international affairs to arts and culture. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and River Teeth, among others. She has taught English and journalism at Phillips Academy, where she served as an advisor to the student newspaper. She holds a B.A. in English from Brown University and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia. The mother of three nearly adult children, she is very much enjoying her newly empty nest.