Local happenings

Brick Apartments Double Occupancy from Two to Four

By Elizabeth Lachermeier (elachermeier@css.edu)

March 28, 2025

A recent on-campus housing change has been causing distress among students. This coming Fall, the Brick apartments will change from two people per apartment to four because there has been an overwhelming number of upperclass housing applications for this coming Fall. 

“Last year, on Feb. 1, when upperclassmen applications were due, we had 364 applicants, this year we have 547, which is well over the number of beds we had available,” said Amy Rutten, the Manager of Housing Operations. 

This huge increase in applications was a shock to the College’s housing department.

 “We didn’t know we were going to have that many applications until the day they closed, so that was a very big surprise for us. I think, in general, there is not a big trend towards increasing applicants on campuses. Not all private colleges in Minnesota have seen the same spike as we have seen here, so it is really hard to know why and how long it will continue,” said Rutten.

Despite this change seeming new to many, the Bricks were previously four-person occupancies. 

“So the Bricks also had four people per apartment until 2019, and at that point, there was dropping enrollment and COVID hit.  We just had kind of a big slump of enrollment for various reasons, so the Bricks were converted to two-people apartments,” said Rutten. 

 For a year during this period, Pine was also rented out to the public. It is suspected that due to the difficulty in finding a place off campus, students are choosing to live on campus where a place for them is guaranteed. The main incentive for this switch from two to four was to ensure that no one would get turned away from living on campus due to a lack of space.

 “One of our motivators for going back to a kind of maximum capacity on campus was to give people the option to stay on campus if they wanted to. At least now they have a choice; they can still choose to move off campus but if they can't find anything or, for whatever reason, they choose not to, they can still live on campus versus turning people away when we have the capacity,” said Rutten.

The reason for this occupancy change is sensible; nonetheless, students are still facing the challenges that it provides. One student is Paula Sendele, a freshman who is living in Birch next year with three roommates. 

“On one hand, we were thankful that we could live together, all four of us, but we had looked at the Bricks before applications and thought it was really small for four girls,” Sendele said.

One of Sendele’s greatest concerns with the Bricks is the size of the bedrooms.

 “I don't know if we can fit a desk in there or how we’ll fit our clothes. Honestly, I was super excited to move out of the dorms because I wanted to have more privacy, and I wanted a bigger bedroom, but now I’m appreciating the time I have left with the bigger space I currently have” she said. 

Sendele asserted that she would be more troubled if she did not know the roommates that she would be sharing the small space with. 

“I think it would be really challenging if you didn't know the people and got random roommates. You really don’t have any privacy anymore and you really have to work stuff out to get along and move together in such a small space,” Sendele said. 

Rutten acknowledged how challenging this change could be to students and expressed how it was a very difficult decision to make.

 “It’s not an easy balance, and I totally get it that it’s a hard one to swallow. But, for a lot of students, it might be the difference between being able to stay and having to go; finding off-campus housing is really hard,” said Rutten. 

Rutten also provided some advice for students who may be struggling with this change. 

“I think it's more important than ever in a smaller apartment, when everyone has less personal space, to have really good boundaries and good communication and to be able to create an environment that works for everybody. Learning to live in a community is an important life skill. Whether a student lives in a double or a four bedroom or a dorm room, the skills required are the same: communicating with their roommates to establish a set of agreed-upon rules that respect each person's space, comfort, and safety.”