This Wednesday, Northwestern undergraduate students looking to live on campus next year received their room selection priority numbers, which will determine where they get to live next year. The Daily examined the evolution of Northwestern’s non-fraternity and sorority housing rates and compared them to those at other Big Ten schools.
Northwestern housing costs tend to increase at a constant rate of around 2.5% to 3.5% annually. For the 2024-25 academic year, average dorm prices increased 3.22% from the previous year. The largest increase occurred from academic year 2019-20 to 2020-21, which was skewed by the removal of triple-occupancy rooms as housing options.
On average, single-occupancy dorm rooms cost 15% more than double-occupancy rooms. This trend has remained fairly consistent over the past three academic years.
NU offers a fairly even ratio of unique single-occupancy room types and unique double-occupancy room types every year. In the academic year 2024-25, there were 34 distinct single options and 33 distinct doubles. By contrast, NU offers a limited number of triple-occupancy rooms and even removed them during the academic years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. NU also does not offer any quad-occupancy rooms in its dorms, unlike some schools in the Big Ten conference, such as Purdue University.
Overall, the number of housing options offered by NU has steadily increased, reaching 74 choices for the 2024-25 academic year, 30 more than were available in the 2020-21 academic year.
Among Big Ten schools, NU has the fourth highest cost of housing, trailing behind the University of Oregon, University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles. Notably, Purdue has the lowest cost of housing at an average of around $5,595 for an academic year.
The average cost of housing in Big Ten schools is $9,931.
Calculations for average housing costs only considered residence halls, not university-provided apartments or fraternity and sorority housing.
As the housing selection process picks up, Northwestern students face a familiar tradeoff: a growing range of residential options paired with rising costs. With more room types available than ever, NU’s housing landscape is poised to keep changing in the years ahead.
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