COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — For the seventh straight year, more students than ever are attending the University of Missouri’s flagship campus.
In some quarters, that’s a cause for celebration. More students mean more tuition dollars, and often a higher national profile.
But the spoils of record enrollment (29,761 as of Monday, the first day of classes) also bring an assortment of headaches: inadequate dorm space, crowded classrooms and a greater reliance on student teaching assistants and adjunct instructors. In mid-June, the school stopped accepting applications for the first time.
A 15.6 percent increase in freshmen — nearly 800 more this year — translated into a housing shortage that forced school officials to rent space at a pair of private apartment complexes two miles from campus.
In university parlance, the off-campus dorms are euphemistically referred to as the school’s “extended campus.”
First-year students assigned to the Campus Lodge and Campus View apartments — or as the school prefers, Mizzou Quads and Tiger Diggs — ride city buses to class and must still purchase campus meal plans even though their apartments come with full kitchens.
