Residence hall crowding at the University of Colorado at Boulder started to ease Tuesday, with many students who had been sleeping in converted lounges for the last week starting to move into available rooms.
Residence hall directors took count of student 聯no-shows聰 on Monday, and as a result have been able to start assigning students occupying overflow areas to the vacancies left by those who have not shown up on campus for the fall semester.
Ken Kucera, head of the reservations office in the Housing Department at CU-Boulder, said the transition will take two to three weeks to complete.
In the meantime, some spaces are able to be offered on a walk-in basis to female students, whose off-campus housing arrangements may have fallen through.
聯Men聮s spaces will remain fairly tight thoughout most of the fall, with very few walk-in spaces available,聰 Kucera predicted.
Residence halls were at 101 percent capacity during the week before classes due to the near record size of this year聮s freshman class -- early estimates put the class at about 4,100 students -- as well as interest in residence hall living among older students.
Although freshmen are required to live on campus if they do not live at home, about one-third of the campus聮s 6,000 residence hall spaces are filled by sophomores and upper classmen.
Students who continue to live on campus after their freshman year say they like the convenience as well as the social opportunities afforded by group living arrangements, and they believe it聮s a good financial value compared to living off-campus. Students pay about $570 a month for a space in a furnished double room with a full meal plan.
CU residence halls also offer academic and personal counseling support as well as computer labs and group study areas. And physical improvements are under way to bring cable television to every room, with seven more residence halls set to be connected next month.