Lily Belle Poling, Staff Photographer

Yale College currently has 524 empty beds. Yet more than a quarter of undergraduates live off campus — in a city with the fourth most competitive housing market in the country.

The metropolitan area has a rental vacancy rate of 3.1 percent, the third lowest in the country, indicating a cutthroat market. Rents have grown 48.19 percent since the pandemic, and the number of people experiencing homelessness in the region more than doubled in the last year, an increase that is directly linked to more expensive rental prices. 

Over 500 on-campus beds are currently unoccupied, according to Ferentz Lafargue, the associate dean of residential college life, and the New Haven housing market is fierce. Nonetheless, more and more Yale College students are choosing to move off campus — twice as many this academic year than in 2019-20. According to Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd, a historic 59 percent of the class of 2026 currently live in off-campus housing. 

Many students move off campus to live with friends from different residential colleges or to guarantee themselves single bedrooms. Others cite concerns about the availability of on-campus housing or the possibility of being forced out of their residential college. 

However, the gradual outpouring of students into adjacent neighborhoods is pushing locals farther away from campus and is one of many factors contributing to increased demand for housing in an ever-hot market, New Haven landlords and residents told the News. With a focus on ensuring residential colleges are a cornerstone of undergraduate life, Yale College administrators are pushing to bring students back to campus. 

An exodus in the wake of COVID-19

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a steady rate of about 16 percent of undergraduates lived in off-campus housing each year. But during the 2020-21 academic year, an unprecedented 62 percent of students lived off campus due to Yale’s strict pandemic policies. 

This year, about 26 percent of the student body, or 1,757 students, live off campus — a number almost double the 982 students who lived off-campus in the last pre-pandemic year.

Three Yale administrators attributed this recent exodus to off-campus housing directly to the pandemic. 

Because so many students either were required or chose to live off campus during the 2020-21 academic year, a greater number of students were able to pass down their apartments to other students, according to Lafargue. Students often recommend their apartments to younger friends, who in turn take over the lease. This made the transition off campus more straightforward than it was before, Lafargue believes.

During the 2020-21 school year, classes were conducted remotely through a “residential/remote model.” The model meant that first-years got to live on campus during the fall semester and switched with sophomores for the spring semester. The University also adopted strict social distancing policies, including grab-and-go dining hall meals and restrictions on social gatherings of more than 10 people. 

Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis suggested that at least some of the students who moved off campus did so because they were dissatisfied with masking restrictions and dining hall policies. Additionally, the class of 2025 became unusually large after the “COVID bump” — a swelling of the student population because of the large percentage of students that took gap years or deferred enrollment — which increased demand for on-campus housing in the following years, causing more students to move off-campus when residential colleges threatened to reach capacity.  

Lewis largely attributed preferences for off-campus housing to sweeping shifts in undergraduate social habits. In the 1980s, he said, undergraduates could have “keg parties in the [residential] colleges,” and the social scene revolved around the residential colleges. Now, due to legal concerns, the party scene has shifted primarily off campus, with students following, Lewis said. 

New Haven is “a nicer place to live, a safer place to live than it was a few decades ago,” he added, making off-campus housing more desirable. Meanwhile, financial aid has expanded, so more students are likely to be able to afford to live off campus, Lewis said. Students can request a refund of the share of their financial aid that goes toward housing costs to use for off-campus rent. 

According to the Yale College Council’s 2024 fall survey, the most common reasons to move off campus come down to better amenities, the opportunity to live with friends from different residential colleges, concerns about the on-campus housing lottery and the cost of Yale room and board. Lewis cited similar findings from undergraduate surveys, adding that students also like to control what they eat and have their own kitchens.

“It was more likely than not that I would have gotten a single, but I just wasn’t willing to take the risk of three consecutive years living in a cramped double,” Jake Siesel ’27 told the News. “So having the opportunity to secure [a single] months in advance and not be beholden to the lottery system was definitely worth the pain of the [off-campus housing] process.”

Now, administrators are aiming to reverse the push towards off-campus living. 

Lafargue wrote that the College is “actively looking for ways to retain more students on campus,” which includes its efforts to add additional dormitories, Arnold and McClellan halls, to the undergraduate housing inventory and “to create as much parity across the [residential] colleges as possible.” 

In November, Boyd announced changes to undergraduate housing policy that include eventually giving juniors priority over seniors in on-campus room selection. The point, she wrote in an email sent to rising seniors, is to make it “less likely that [juniors] will feel pressure” to move off campus once they have better odds in the housing lottery. Once students move off campus their junior year, it is very unlikely that they will return as seniors, she added, according to “historical patterns.” 

In an email sent to students before spring break, Lewis shared that “enhancing our residential communities” is a part of Yale College’s strategic plan to create “a community of learning.” Lewis has convened a task force within the Council of the Heads of College “to give focused attention” to undergraduate housing.

“I felt like I wanted to live in a place that really felt like a community or with people that I really feel at home with, and I was not getting that through the college system necessarily,” Adam Bear ’27 said when explaining why he’ll be moving off campus next year. He also keeps kosher and finds it “kind of annoying” that there aren’t always many options for him in his college’s dining hall. 

Lewis said administrators are trying to speed up the annexing process, or when students are given on-campus housing outside of their residential college, so that students know earlier if they’re being annexed. He’d rather students find out about annex status and then choose to move off campus than preemptively find off-campus housing to avoid the possibility of annexation. 

If Siesel were certain he would get an on-campus single, that would have “changed [his] calculus slightly.” Yet, by the time the housing lottery draw happens, there aren’t many housing options left in New Haven, compelling students to make housing choices early, he said, suggesting moving the lottery to earlier in the academic year. 

“In an ideal world, if the system were to be different, I’d still be living on campus, but just the nature of how it works makes it much more difficult,” he said.

Regardless, Boyd assured students in the November email that “Yale College has long had enough space to house all eligible students who want to live on campus.”

Students move out, forming an off-campus “bubble”

Undergraduate students who opt to live off campus tend to move into apartments or houses near central campus, with houses providing an option for larger groups of students to live together. 

According to Carol Horsford, the founder of Farnam Realty Group, which manages thousands of units in the New Haven area, the houses and apartments closest to central campus receive the highest demand from students — and are also the most expensive.

Undergraduate students tend to sign leases much earlier than graduate students, Horsford said, with the earliest groups expressing interest almost a year before the lease would begin. 

31 High St., which was historically occupied by the all-gender social group Edon Club, is usually the first of her properties to be snagged, with students expressing interest as early as September or October of the year before they move in. 

When looking for off-campus housing, Siesel, who will be living in 31 High St. next year, prioritized proximity to Yale’s Cross Campus and a space large enough to live with a large group of friends.

In Horsford’s experience, aside from location, undergraduates’ main priorities are in-unit laundry and air conditioning — amenities that are not available in on-campus housing. Most 21st-century students, she said, are accustomed to living with these features, and are willing to pay higher rents to maintain their living standards.

If Yale wants to encourage students to stay on campus, installing central air conditioning could be a good place to start, Horsford suggested.

According to Horsford, a room in one of the houses she manages averages about $1,500 per month, but prices can range anywhere from $875 to $2,000 per bedroom, depending on factors such as location and size of the individual room.

On-campus housing for Yale undergraduates not receiving financial aid costs $11,300 for the 2024-25 academic year. Divided over 10 months — August to May, a standard academic year — this comes down to $1,130 per month. Off-campus students paying $1,500 per month in rent pay $18,000 per year for a 12-month lease, $6,700 more than students paying for housing on campus. Many students, however, look to sublet their rooms over the summer to offset additional costs.

Farnam also owns The Elm apartment complex at 104 Howe St., which is described as “premier luxury off campus living” and is popular with Yale students. A studio at The Elm starts at $1,800 per month, while two-bedrooms start at $3,250. 

Siesel, who does not receive financial aid from Yale, said the additional cost of living off-campus is worth the assurance of getting to live with friends and having a single.

“I do think that your money goes a little further off campus. You can get a little nicer place,” Cyrus Kenkare ’26, who is moving off campus next year, said. 

Although many off-campus options are more expensive than on-campus housing, some students are able to find places that cost about the same as, or even less than, Yale room fees. 

For Bear, ensuring that his apartment would not cost more than an on-campus dorm room was a priority, and he was even able to find options that were “much less,” he said. Like Siesel, he also prioritized proximity to central campus.  

According to Lewis, a study from the Yale College Dean’s Office found that wealthier students are more likely to live off-campus, although plenty of students on financial aid use their room and board refund to pay off-campus rent. 

In 2024, Horsford created Bull Dog Housing, which lists the properties in her company’s portfolio that are typically rented by undergraduate students. Most properties occupy the downtown, Dwight, Dixwell and East Rock neighborhoods. 

Apartment complexes such as Crown Towers, Cambridge Oxford Apartments, The Elmhurst and The Taft are also popular with undergraduates and are located in those same neighborhoods, although the buildings vary in price and luxe.

From Horsford’s perspective, undergraduates are constrained to a “bubble” within a 15-minute walk of central campus. 

Graduate students are more likely to venture farther out, especially because many of the graduate and professional schools are farther away from the main campus. East Rock, Prospect Hill and Wooster Square host a number of these students, who can easily travel to and from campus using the Yale Shuttle.

Last summer, Yale demolished Helen Hadley Hall, a dormitory with 177 single rooms for graduate students. After this, the Yale Graduate Housing Office partnered with University Properties — which manages Yale’s commercial properties, including retail stores, office spaces and residential units — to provide alternative accommodations for graduate and professional students.

Chelsea Company manages 12 apartment buildings, including The Elmhurst, and rents to dozens of Yale students — undergraduate, graduate and professional — each year, according to the director of property management, Neil Currie. Year after year, Chelsea’s buildings have a 100 percent occupancy rate. 

The buildings closest to campus are “almost 100 percent undergrads,” according to Currie, while others house more than 90 percent graduate students. 

Off-campus students heat up local housing market

The gradual outpouring of students into local neighborhoods both fuels competition in the already-hot New Haven housing market and broader demographic shifts in the areas closest to campus. 

Currie, the property manager of Chelsea Company, said that he has seen several New Haven natives choose to live a couple of blocks farther from campus as students have trickled into adjacent neighborhoods like Dwight.

“The average income of a Yale student’s parents is greater than the average income of a New Haven resident, so when looking at what a parent can afford to give their child for living off campus, the deeper pockets can drive the costs higher,” Currie said. “Yale students have a certain budget, and that budget is beyond the range of someone who’s just working in a shop or a restaurant in New Haven. That’s going to push those people further out.”

The average annual income in New Haven is $34,482, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. According to a survey of Yale College’s class of 2028 conducted by the News, approximately 76 percent of students come from households making at least $45,000 per year, with 43 percent of students reporting annual household incomes above $150,000.

However, students’ purchasing power is not the only thing driving prices up, Currie suggested. 

According to Currie, if Yale were to reduce its on-campus housing costs, students, who often do not want to pay more to live off-campus, would be more likely to stay on campus. This decline in demand for off-campus housing could cause prices to fall, at least close to campus, Currie suggested, as the market responds to that shift in demand.

David Schleicher, a professor of property and urban law at Yale Law School, explained that New Haven’s housing market suffers from a simple supply and demand problem. 

“The sense that there is a lack of housing or [that] housing has become either too expensive or hard to find in New Haven — it’s a product of an increase in people wanting it and housing takes a little while to be built,” he said. “So when there’s an increase in demand, you see a spike in prices, or ultimately some kind of limitation on the ability of the market to provide housing.” 

As demand for housing increases, as it has among Yale undergraduates for the past five years, prices will continue to rise until the market responds with more units, Schleicher said.

While the city has a goal to create 10,000 new units in New Haven in the next 10 years, it has also become more restrictive about building new housing, Schleicher said, through more stringent zoning legislation. One ordinance, for example, mandates a minimum quota of affordable units in every new building. According to Schleicher, those types of regulations will ultimately reduce the number of new units that get built.

Currie added that he thinks mandating affordable units will drive up the cost of non-affordable units, so that developers can compensate for the losses incurred by affordable units. 

“If the city had policies that encouraged new construction with fewer hurdles to jump through, that would allow for more housing to be available at the lower end of the price spectrum,” Currie said. 

To Lewis, the number of Yale undergraduates seeking off-campus housing is a “relatively small” portion of the total Yale impact on the local real estate market. However, he said that undergraduates are likely to seek apartments or houses with multiple bedrooms that would usually cater to families or even multiple families. In this way, Lewis said, undergraduates may have a notable impact on the housing market in close proximity to Yale, but he doubted that the impact is felt across the entire city.

Kevin McCarthy, an East Rock resident and former state housing policy analyst, agreed that while the citywide impact of undergraduates living off-campus may be trivial, their presence on the market for large apartments or houses is relevant.

“I suspect it’s fairly common for a group of undergrads to rent a large apartment or a house, and that market is particularly tight,” he said. “If you’re an ordinary family with four kids, finding a three-bedroom or four-bedroom in town is really challenging.”

He added that landlords may be incentivized to acquire housing near Yale or make properties more appealing to students because students tend to be reliable rent payers.

More notable, McCarthy suspects, are the thousands of graduate students who have historically lived off-campus and are often in the position to pay above-market rents. The closing of Helen Hadley Hall last summer, without the creation of any new student housing, has “a negative impact” on the local housing market, he said, “because the students who were moved from Hadley Hall to University Properties essentially pushed out other grad students who would be living in University Properties.”

McCarthy said he voiced his concerns to the Graduate Housing Office, although he added that the people he spoke to did not “seem to care that they’re exacerbating a housing shortage.” The office did not respond to the News’ request for comment. 

Ultimately, it would be in the best interest of both the University and New Haven, McCarthy said, for Yale to reduce the number of students living off campus. 

What can Yale do? 

Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26, a New Haven native and alder for parts of Downtown and East Rock, echoed McCarthy’s call for Yale to provide more housing for students, as well as do work to improve the quality of existing units. 

College administrators have been trying to do just that, Lewis said, through recent initiatives such as ensuring that all dormitory common rooms have permanent furniture. 

However, the matter is more complicated than Yale just building more dormitories, Sabin acknowledged. If Yale were to build more student housing, those properties would likely become tax-exempt. Nearly 57 percent of real estate in New Haven — valued at more than $10 billion is tax-exempt already; the University and its hospital system own 43.4 percent of that property for a combined total of more than $4.3 billion tax-exempt realty. 

In contrast, if a new building is built by the private market and occupied by local residents and students alike, then they will all be paying taxes to the city, which would enable New Haven to provide more services to residents.  

According to New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, part of the creation of Yale’s Center for Inclusive Growth is to help New Haven better coordinate with the University as the school’s population grows. While much of the center’s work has focused on creating and supporting small businesses, he said that members of the organization have expressed interest in ensuring that housing becomes an important component of the center’s goals. 

“It’s important that Yale understands that its financial contribution to the city is hugely important to the city’s success,” Elicker told the News. “I think there certainly could be a good role that Yale could play to help support the development of housing.” 

As it stands now, the College is looking to keep more students on campus, through new policies like giving juniors priority over seniors in the housing lottery. It remains to be seen if these moves will help that goal come to fruition. 

“The empty beds speak to Yale’s inability to effectively distribute people to bedrooms and suites across campus, and in an ideal world, there should be no empty beds on campus,” Siesel said. “Yale should take concrete steps to ensure that every single bed on campus is filled.”

Students in their first four semesters of enrollment are required to live on campus unless they are married or are at least 21 years old.