SAN ANTONIO – Nearly 100 Texas A&M San Antonio students have called a hotel room, home this semester due to a shortage of dorms on campus. Their bags will have to be packed and moved out by check-out Saturday morning.
TAMUSA student Lily Reimherr Buckert first broke the story in an article published in the student paper, The Mesquite.
“It was a little bit personal, honestly, because I live in the dorms,” Reimherr Buckert said. “I was wondering what my options for next year were going to be.”
Students living at the hotel don’t have a meal plan, but like other hotel guests, their stay includes free breakfast and cleaning services.
“We enjoyed the free breakfast for sure, but everything else was the same (in comparison to the dorms),” Bernice Correa said. Correa is a junior at TAMUSA living at one of the two hotels on the city’s South Side.
Lack of planning and space lead to 120 students living at the hotels.
“We stopped taking reservations in late summer, but we already had 150 or so students who are wanting to move in,” Don Albrecht said. Albrecht is the special assistant and chief of staff for Student Success and Engagement.
Currently, that number has decreased to 97.
Hotel life for students is $1,500 cheaper a semester than living at Esperanza Hall, the university’s only dorm that houses roughly 375 students.
Each student shares their small room with an assigned roommate. Similar to the dorms, each hotel has a designated resident adviser or RA.
“It’s pretty neat,” Michelle Irving said. Irving is classified as a junior. It’s her first year at TAMUSA. “The RAs are very (accessible). You can talk to them any time you want, and they give you contact information and everything (you need).”
Other students like Janie Serna say it’s an unusual setup.
“Not having the meal plan, for sure, and the shuttle (is hard),” Serna said.
The freshmen will return to the hotel for the spring semester and they hope the university will work out some issues.
“Just the shuttle, because, like, the (shuttle) times would (change) a lot,” Serna said. “So, we would sometimes miss (the shuttle) or just waiting for a long time.”
Both hotels are about a 15-minute drive from campus.
“They leave (campus) on the hour and leave the hotels on the half hour,” Albrecht said.
For other students, living at a hotel has affected their college experience.
“(I want) more space and more privacy,” Correa said. “Also, I thought I connected more (with students) when I was in the dorms. You know more about events going on at school when you’re in the dorms… (because) they have it posted everywhere.”
Unlike the dorms, students will have to check out of their hotel rooms by Saturday, without exception.
“I guess that’s kind of like the offset of it,” Irving said. “It’s not a dorm room (where) you just get to leave your stuff, but I mean, it kind of like prepares you (for the future). When you’re living in an apartment, you have a lease and then you have to move out by a certain date.”
Irving is set to move back to the hotel on January 7. So far, TAMUSA anticipates 69 other students will live in a hotel room during the spring semester.
According to university administrators, some students at Esperanza Hall have opted to add a fifth person in their dorm in exchange for a reduced rate. The actual solution, however, wouldn’t come until about a year and a half.
“The A&M System Board of Regents meets in February and again in May,” Albrecht said. “We have plans to have proposals and details presented at those meetings (for a new dorm hall). The system is working with us to develop those plans and requests (for) the financial part of that.”
If approved, construction could begin by the summer of 2021. According to Albrecht, the goal is to, “have that new facility open by fall of 2023.”
The new dorm hall would also house roughly 375 students.