As previously reported in The Oberlin Review by Chloe Mance, the College’s class of 2029 applicants totaled 10,427, a 7.5 percent increase from the 9,702 received for the class of 2028. The Conservatory saw a 41.3 percent increase in applicants from last year, with 25 percent of the 1,850 first-year applicants admitted (“Oberlin Receives Record Number of Applications,” The Oberlin Review, April 4, 2025). This enrollment growth is the administration’s way of trying to mitigate transfer rates, retain a certain level of enrollment and graduation rate, and support the financial stability of both the College and the Conservatory in uncertain times. This is not speculation. Prior to COVID-19, Oberlin was already working to fix their budget deficit, which was projected to rise to $162 million by 2028 without intervention, and one of the administration’s stated goals was to increase the class size of the College (“Oberlin Admissions, Enrollment Strong Despite COVID-19 Uncertainty,” The Oberlin Review, June 11, 2021). Larger first-year cohorts mean more tuition dollars, and the housing shifts we are living through are the physical infrastructure catching up to that financial strategy.
In 2025, Burton Hall was converted to first-year housing for the first time. Half of South Hall is now rumored to follow, and higher semester requirements have been attached to buildings like Woodland Hall and Firelands. This fits a pattern the administration has established over several years. The formal designation of residence halls as First-Year Residential Experience dorms was explicitly tied to accommodating the large incoming classes, with administrators acknowledging that first-years had been unusually scattered across campus as a direct result (“ResEd To Implement Changes to Cohort System in Fall 2023,” The Oberlin Review, March 10, 2023). Now, with the class of 2030 anticipated to be even larger, the campus is being rearranged around them, and every other class year is paying for it.
Upperclassmen are funneled into older buildings with no air conditioning, limited singles, and furniture that has not been updated in years. These dorms carry reputations for uncleanliness, overheating, and in the case of East Hall, a persistent stench. Many older dorms have mold, and buildings including South Hall and East Hall have building-wide drain fly infestations in plumbing systems installed in 1963. Meanwhile, first-year designated buildings — Kahn Hall and Dascomb Hall’s first floor — offer air conditioning and updated facilities that upperclassmen dorms continue to lack. The gap between what new students receive and what returning students are expected to accept is no longer a matter of perception. It is a documented, longstanding imbalance that is now affecting students.
The only housing shift nominally designed to benefit second-years and above is Woodland Hall, whose semester requirement was moved up for Fall 2026. But Woodland Hall is not the upgrade it was sold as. Students have experienced countless evacuations due to the dorm’s fire alarm systems, which have gone off at any time, irrespective of it being day or night, a problem that began within the first weeks of occupancy in Fall 2025, according to a Review article written by Sophie Brown (“Mandatory Meetings For Woodland Residents Held Amid Consistent Fire Alarms,” The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2026). Residence Life held mandatory community meetings for all Woodland Hall residents in response to the unusually high number of alarms since the building opened.
Beyond the alarms, Woodland Hall has windows that do not open. Construction on the building’s exterior was still ongoing when students moved in, a result of a manufacturing defect in the waterproof sealant that required the removal and replacement of the sealant and bricks entirely (“Students Move Into Woodland Hall as Construction Continues,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 5, 2025). The building looks cheaply made, with panels of fake brick on the side and limited communal facilities. But at least it has air conditioning, right?
Adding insult to injury, ResLife has moved to decrease the number of students approved to live off-campus, framing it explicitly as part of the College’s calculations of retention rates (“College Expects Decrease in Off-Campus Housing,” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 7, 2025). Upperclassmen are not merely being pushed into deteriorating housing; they are now being denied the option to leave it. This piece is not the first to raise these concerns, and that is precisely the problem. A past piece in the Review by Anna Yeh (“Construction of Woodland Hall Raises Concerns for Students,” The Oberlin Review, Oct. 31, 2025) and an open letter to the College by Kisa Biely, Zoe Meister, and Ella Greene have covered shortcomings, the housing squeeze, and ResLife’s failures before (“Village Housing Open Letter to ResLife,” The Oberlin Review, March 7, 2025). What has not been discussed enough is what students and the administration can actually do.
The administration should once again implement a priority system that is truly seniority-based in the housing lottery. Students who have invested three or four years at this institution should not be competing on equal footing with those who have just arrived. ResLife has acknowledged it is moving toward a cohort-based housing model, but that model currently advantages first-years, not upperclassmen. Flip it.
The College should also commit to renovating existing residence halls rather than simply directing upperclassmen toward them with an apology. That means installing air conditioning in buildings that have gone without it for decades, replacing the 1963-era plumbing that has produced recurring mold and pest infestations, and hiring adequate janitorial staff to maintain the facilities students are paying to live in. Between June 2024 and June 2025, Oberlin collected $26 million from student housing fees alone. The money exists, but where does it go? ResLife also needs to communicate more transparently with students during housing processes. Students should not be discovering mid-lottery that options have disappeared or that requirements have changed. Rising third-years have found singles mostly gone by their allotted registration period, while other upperclassmen have been left without the Village Housing that typically comes with seniority because of planning failures that could be corrected with earlier disclosure and better communication.
Although the students of this college have come to embrace and support the class of 2029, the enrollment surge has created an unfortunate shift in campus priorities that negatively affects every other class year. Oberlin’s own housing policy calls its residential programs vital to students’ academic and personal growth. If that is true, it cannot only apply to the students the admissions office is currently recruiting. It has to apply to the ones who already chose to stay. The administration has the tools to fix this. What it lacks, apparently, is the urgency.
