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Southern University board votes in favor of funding new housing on Baton Rouge campus
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BATON ROUGE — The Southern University Board of Supervisors voted to grant preliminary approval to fund more student housing at a special meeting on Tuesday.
Some students at Southern say housing fills up fast, within a few hours, saying if they don't get assigned a dorm, their only option is an off-campus apartment.
"We don't have enough dorms, it's not enough places for people to live," a student said.
Chair of Southern's Board of Supervisors, Tony Clayton, says the university has turned down thousands of students because there was not enough housing for them.
"Southern and Grambling and HBCUs across the country created the black middle class. There's some inexplicable phenomenon where African American kids are making a wholesale run back to enroll in HBCUs," Clayton said.
The proposed new housing plan includes constructing two new residential buildings on campus. Southern says one would be for first and second year students, the other would be for upperclassmen and graduates, adding nearly 850 beds to the campus.
Clayton says the project is expected to be funded through third-party financing.
"From the tuition and the room and board, that's part of the tuition will be allocated to the builders and the folks that finance this deal. So we'll service the debt, so it's money that's not coming from the taxpayers," he said.
University leaders will now have to go before the State Bond Commission and the Louisiana Board of Regents.
"You've heard the old adage, build it, and they will come, they are coming, we just got to build it," Clayton said.
The financing for new housing at Southern University from the Southern University System Foundation and the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority was the only item voted on during the brief meeting.
No members of the board objected to the housing item.
Following the vote, results from a market analysis of Southern student housing and a build report comparing proposed dorms to comparable institutions were also presented to the board.
The full meeting can be viewed here.
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