PITTSBURGH — Point Park University has run out of dorm rooms for its incoming freshman class. Today, families are learning that their students will be living here at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh, several blocks away from campus, with just one week’s notice until their move-in date.
Next week, downtown streets will be filled with hundreds of college students as Point Park University begins its scheduled campus move-in. It’s a day many freshmen look forward to.
Some 90 freshman families are learning their students won’t be living on campus but instead will be living at the hotel.
“There will be two students to a room, two queen beds, and there were already mini fridges in the room,” Vice President of Enrollment Management Marlin Collingwood said.
Officials with the university confirmed campus police will begin monitoring this portion of downtown, and the hotel floors housing students will be exclusively for students.
RAs will monitor the floors and all of the same room accommodations that a traditional dorm has will be made available, but with all of the changes, some are questioning the late notice.
“They were notified at the end of July that we were going to be looking for and finding an alternative space,” Collingwood said.
The vice president of enrollment said only families who submitted their housing deposits later in the season were impacted and said the school reached out to several locations.
He says, unlike the University of Pittsburgh’s off-campus option, the Wyndham Grand is closer, a six-minute walk, and the cost for boarding will remain the same.
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“Literally, the distance from the Wyndham Grand to our main academic area is not much different from the academic hall to the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Our students navigate that area on a regular basis,” Collingwood said.
Point Park’s first-time freshmen enrollment spiked from roughly 400 students last year to more than 600 first-time freshmen this year, making it one of the largest incoming classes to date.
Channel 11 asked the university what caused the estimated 25 percent surge in enrollment. They said sports. It’s the university’s first year in the NCAA and they’ve added new academic programs.
“We’ve seen an influx of students from rural parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia,” Collingwood said.
Freshmen move-in is scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday.
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