A new policy at Brigham Young University lets students in single on-campus housing transfer to married on-campus housing without going to the bottom of the waiting list.
Although married housing is always full, total on-campus housing was down last year, said BYU spokeswoman Margaret Smoot. The policy change is an effort to attract more single students to on-campus housing with the promise that, if they get married within 30 days of the end of their single contract, they will not have to wait 15-18 months like most married students trying to get into the Wymount complex.BYU housing is a business operation independent of tithing funds from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smoot said. Because of that, the solution to filling the single housing units was linked with filling married housing.
"It's all one bottom line," Smoot said.
There has always been a transfer policy for single housing, Smoot said. Many students in Helaman Halls or Deseret Towers want to move to Heritage Halls, and they are given preferential status over those living off-campus, she said. The new policy, which took effect with the start of spring term last week, is an extension of the transfer policy into married housing.
Although some students on the Wymount waiting list are upset, the policy change doesn't affect that many people, Smoot said. Only 15 people were transferred to Wymount, and all of those went into single-bedroom units, she said. Together, Wymount apartments and the Wymount trailer park have 283 single-bedroom units.
"Most of the people on the (Wymount) list want two- or three- (bedroom apartments)," Smoot said. But, she added, "Yes, I think it's going to be hard on those 15 who would have taken one-bedroom units."
Allowing on-campus residents to transfer to married housing when they're married wasn't "the first thing (the housing board) went to," Smoot said. Housing authorities also tried to make Helaman Halls and Deseret Towers more appealing by adding more amenities such as computer rooms, microwaves and lounging areas, she said.
Another, less-palatable alternative would have been raising rent across the board to compensate for fewer single students using on-campus housing.
"That would have caused as much of an outcry as this," Smoot said.
BYU offers 1,049 units for married couples, ranging from one- to three-bedrooms, Smoot said.