Delaware
University of Delaware students struggling with housing cost and limited availability, according to new study
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Across the country, universities are grappling with a worsening student housing crisis. Rising rents, limited on-campus accommodations and increasing enrollment have left many students struggling to secure affordable housing.
In Boston, nearly 70% of students at Boston University and Northeastern live off-campus, often competing with long-term city residents for space. In California, the University of California system has faced lawsuits over housing shortages. And at Temple University in Philadelphia, some students have been left with no choice but to sleep in cars due to a lack of affordable housing options.
The University of Delaware is no exception. With a growing student population and an increasing reliance on off-campus housing, many students — particularly graduate students — are facing mounting financial pressures.
A study conducted in 2024 by Abdulrasheed Dawodu, a UD alumnus, examined the struggles of African graduate students at the university. The findings revealed that over 80% of respondents spend more than 30% of their income on housing, while 46% pay more than half of their income on rent. That makes them what HUD classifies as “extremely cost-burdened.”
“That’s quite alarming,” Dawodu said. “We need to understand some of the peculiarities about the African students. One, they are limited by the number of hours they could work. Based on their contract, they could only work on campus and they could only work 20 hours a week on campus.”
But the issue isn’t new. Housing constraints at UD have been decades in the making.
UD’s housing problem did not start overnight
There was a time when finding a dorm at UD wasn’t as difficult as it is today. In the 1950s, the university built enough dormitories to house 60% of its undergraduate students. However, between 1972 and 1991, no new dorms were constructed, even as enrollment increased. Today, only 38% of undergraduates live on campus, leaving thousands to find housing in Newark’s increasingly competitive rental market.
“The school had a policy of not building additional on-campus housing for students,” Dawodu said. “The policy was just to only rehabilitate what was available, and what was available could only house about 38% of even the undergraduate students.”
The university’s decision to reduce its on-campus housing stock by 1,900 beds in recent years has further compounded the issue. One of the most notable losses was Christiana Towers, a high-rise complex that once housed hundreds of students.
“The apartment [complex] was being considered to be used as, I think they wanted to make it like a garden. That’s good from an environmental standpoint,” Dawodu said. “If the school is not expanding, and the available [dorm buildings] get demolished and used for something else without actually replacing [them], to me, I think that’s not the most efficient strategy at that time given the fact that housing is insufficient for the students.”
Christiana Towers has remained vacant since its closure in 2019. Some students and alumni argue that repurposing the complex into affordable housing could help alleviate the student housing crunch.
UD officials say the towers are no longer viable for student living and will be demolished in the near future.
“We are moving towards demolition of those buildings. They will come down,” José-Luis Riera, UD’s Vice President for Student Life, confirmed. “We really assess that the buildings could no longer provide the high-quality experience … that we want all of our residence halls to have.”
“We are identifying what sites exist on campus for new residential projects,” he said. “That’s certainly potentially one of them, but we haven’t gotten as far as conceptualizing what that project might look like at this point.”
The lack of a concrete replacement plan has left some students wondering whether UD’s housing strategy is keeping pace with student needs.
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Thomas Jefferson University is opening a regional campus of its Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Delaware, an effort that will result in the state’s first medical school.
Jefferson beat out three other bidders to establish the four-year program in partnership with the state. The other bidders were the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico, Spotlight Delaware reported.
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The inaugural class of 40 medical students will begin instruction in July 2028. Initially, the campus will be based at the University of Delaware in Newark, with Jefferson faculty providing instruction. A permanent home for the campus is still being finalized, the Inquirer reported.
The medical students will receive 18 months of preclinical training on campus before receiving clinical training from healthcare providers in Delaware’s southern counties, where the state’s physician shortage is most deeply felt. That shortage is compounded by an aging population, Delaware officials said.
“Jefferson is committed to being part of the solution to Delaware’s physician shortage,” Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione said in a statement. “We are proud to help build a future where every Delawarean has access to the care they deserve. Jefferson is all in.”
The school’s creation is being supported by $157.4 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Delaware is one of three states without a Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program. Since the late 1960s, Jefferson and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine have reserved seats for Delaware students.
“Sidney Kimmel Medical College has trained generations of physicians for more than 200 years, more than any other medical college in the country,” Said Ibrahim, dean of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, said in a statement. “It is a privilege to bring our mission to Delaware’s patients and communities.”
Jefferson has announced several expansions recently. The university is establishing a full-time doctor of nursing practice-nurse anesthesia program and several online graduate programs at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Center for Healthcare Education in Lehigh County. It also is opening a satellite respiratory therapy lab at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown.
Delaware officials said medical students will start their classroom instruction at UD and then do their clinical training at offices and health care systems in Kent and Sussex counties, where the shortage of doctors is most acute.
However, ChristianaCare, which has its own partnership with Jefferson, is not participating. The state’s largest health care system was part of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s unsuccessful bid to operate the school. In a joint statement from ChristianaCare and PCOM, the two organizations expressed disappointment with not being part of the consortium of higher education institutions and healthcare organizations.
“The path forward raises genuine questions about whether the school’s goals can be fully realized without ChristianaCare’s meaningful participation in its clinical training mission,” it said. “The success of any four-year medical program depends not just on an academic institution, but on a true and committed partnership with its clinical partners — one built on shared mission, mutual investment and trust developed over time.”
Students in the first class can get their tuition subsidized, covering all of their education costs, in exchange for an agreement to work in rural Delaware for five years.
Running the medical school is expected to cost Jefferson $78 million over the next five years. The money is from a federal rural health grant through the Rural Health Transformation Program, which congressional Republicans created in the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
The program will give $50 billion to every state over five years, though exactly the total each will eventually receive is unclear. Half of the money is to be distributed equally to states and the other half is awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services based on a variety of factors.
The state applied for $1 billion late last year to improve health care in Kent and Sussex counties. The Trump administration has so far allocated Delaware $157 million. Delaware is expected to receive at least $500 million over the life of the fund.
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