College is expensive. Tuition and fees alone are enough to overwhelm many students. But the cost doesn’t stop there. The cost of housing and other living expenses sometimes fly under the radar when students are calculating the cost of attendance, despite being important and unavoidable expenses.  

After attending a virtual “Talking Circle” organized by the Student Senate in early February, I learned that GSU has committed to increasing the cost of on-campus housing annually. Considering that “affordability” is a significant selling point for the university, it seemed important to uncover more details about this policy and the reasoning behind its implementation.  

For an answer to these questions, the Phoenix reached out to Mushtaq Choudhary, Director of Auxiliary Services and University Housing at GSU. Choudhary has been employed at Governors State since October 2015, and this position reflects his nearly two-decades long career in higher education.   

When asked to provide a brief description of the university’s decision to increase housing costs annually, Choudhary began with an explanation of the term “pro forma.” According to Choudhary, whenever a new structure is built by an institution, a pro forma financial statement is written. He writes that these reports are “based on hypothetical scenarios that [involve] assumptions or financial projections.” He continued to say that these reports include “revenue estimates, costs that are incurred (including debt service) and the net return that is expected from a project.” 

Based on the pro forma report, Choudhary says that “it was recommended that the housing room rates increase annually by 3%.” This percentage is meant to offset costs of inflation, to support on-going maintenance of the facility, and to cover unexpected costs (i.e. damage due to extreme weather). Students may be surprised by the cost of maintaining the building during a typical fiscal year; Choudhary noted that the cost of repairs and renovations during the previous academic year was $98,500. 

Unfortunately, the university housing facility experienced an additional increase in cost during this academic year for maintenance costs that had not been accounted for in the original pro forma report. According to Choudhary, this unexpected increase in cost has funded “HVAC upgrades to support the modification made to the air quality (due to COVID-19),” additional sanitization of the facilities, meal delivery for students in on-campus isolation, and “the continued cost of technology enhancements to support the remote instruction delivery during the pandemic.” 

In order to cover these additional costs, the university has implemented an additional 0.5 % increase annually. This extra increase will remain until these additional maintenance costs are no longer necessary.  

It is important for students to note that despite the contracted annual increases, residents are locked in to the cost agreed upon in their original contract as long as they residents successfully renew their contracts within the “designated period.” In other words, they will not be impacted by either the 3% or 0.5% increases if they properly re-contract themselves. 

When asked about the danger of sacrificing GSU’s label of “affordability” for the sake of renovation, Choudhary responded by pointing out that Governors State still boasts the most affordable on-campus housing in the state of Illinois despite the university’s necessary increases in cost. 

Choudhary estimated that the cost of living will continue to increase at the 3% rate annually for about the next 10 years. He provided this estimate based on how long he believes it will take for the university to pay off its loan for the facility. After the loan payment is complete, the university will re-evaluate and make new decisions about a pattern of annual cost increases.  

Choudhary said that it is difficult to estimate how these annual increases will change during the re-evaluation period because the needs of the university may be different 10 years from now. For example, GSU may decide to renovate the current facility or expand on-campus housing by constructing another building. Decisions like these will ultimately affect the cost of housing, but they are difficult to predict this far in advance. 

Annual cost increases are also necessary to implement changes that are suggested by residents of the facility. For example, Prairie Place (GSU’s on-campus housing facility) has sent out a “quality of life” survey to its residents every year, asking about the strengths and weaknesses of the on-campus living facility. The responses to these surveys are considered, and as a response, reasonable changes to the facility are carried out. “If we didn’t ask our students [for their opinions], we would be dis-servicing them,” said Choudhary.  

Even though the university’s commitment to a 3% annual increase for on-campus living may offend some students at first glance, these increases allow the university to maintain its facilities for the health, safety, and comfortability of its on-campus residents, all the while still maintaining the lowest statewide costs of on-campus housing. It seems as if GSU has succeeded in maintaining its selling point of affordability while balancing its desire for campus growth and facility maintenance.