How UW’s Campus is Quickly Becoming Unlivable
For any UW-Madison student, the search for apartments on campus seems to get more difficult every year, and this leasing season has hit extra hard. The issue is that the rent at almost every apartment has increased for the next leasing period; the main reason given by landlords and management companies has been that increasing costs from inflation have forced them to increase rent. But some of these increases feel disproportionately high, and it’s made it very difficult for some students to find affordable housing anywhere close to campus. This has made many students, including myself, wonder if the price increases can really be attributed to inflation, or if students are being taken advantage of.
On one hand, inflation could be a part of it. It’s valid that rent prices increase to fund the increasing costs of services and materials needed to maintain apartments. It’s certainly true that inflation could be raising the cost of running apartment buildings in Madison. In theory, if there was proper competition in the housing market, it would prevent management companies from raising their prices more than needed in order to stay competitive, meaning inflation would be the main culprit of the recent increase in rent prices.
However, it’s hard to believe that the Madison housing market is truly competitive. It’s not a normal housing situation – students need to live on campus to attend class. They don’t have much flexibility in finding a place to live unless they have a car or are willing to have a long bus commute, which is not the typical situation. Additionally, UW-Madison enrolls many international and out-of-state students who may come from higher-income families and can afford to pay for a higher cost of living – something uncommon for many in-state students and those with scholarships.
This creates a strange market where there will always be students willing to pay for expensive housing as long as it’s on campus. In fact, the most expensive, luxury apartments sell out the fastest. But for students with strict budgets, it’s incredibly difficult to find somewhere to live, and there’s often not even time to tour an apartment before it’s leased. These circumstances make the market not properly competitive, meaning it’s likely that there’s another factor in addition to inflation that’s driving up the price.
What it comes down to is the exploitation of UW-Madison students. It’s a large undergraduate school, and many students want to be on campus, which is where housing is the most expensive. This makes sense: there’s an insane demand for these places. But very few management companies have to worry about not leasing their apartments – this year, just three weeks after most companies opened applications, it’s already challenging to find available units. Some students even camped out overnight outside a leasing company in order to get an apartment for next year. For any student, getting the housing you want is very competitive. But for students with strict budgets, UW-Madison is quickly becoming unlivable – unless you commute or are okay with your bed being in the kitchen (seriously – that was listed as a fourth bedroom).
So while high inflation accounts for some of the rent increases, the rate we see in Madison is disproportionate, suggesting that landlords and management companies are using these conditions as an excuse to increase profit. And this strategy worked! Some of the most expensive places sold out overnight. But for many students, housing insecurity is becoming a worsening reality – and it’s one that the university should acknowledge and address if it wants to stop isolating lower-income students.