Do new student rentals affect other housing submarkets? Evidence from Champaign-Urbana
type: CreativeWork
description: This paper explores the relationship between student rental housing and other submarkets. I use Champaign-Urbana, Illinois as my case study area — home to the flagship University of Illinois campus. I examine university enrollment data from 1980 to 2018 to track demographic changes in the student population. Then I use decennial census and American Community Survey 5-year estimates from 1990 on to determine the spatial distribution of student renters over time. Finally, I examine shifts in the distribution of rents to determine how the movement of students has affected what Champaign-Urbana’s landlords charge across the metropolitan area. I find evidence that a highly visible expansion of luxury student housing since 2008 in Champaign’s university adjacent Campustown area has thus far accommodated student growth without spillover to other neighborhoods. Over the past four decades, enrollment at the University has increased rapidly, with much of that growth due to international and out-of-state students, and particularly students from Asia. This occurred parallel to substantial tuition increases — a reaction to decreasing state appropriations for higher education. Because international and out-of-state students pay higher tuition rates and are less likely to receive financial aid, I infer I that they also have access to enough income to afford high rents. As enrollment skyrocketed, decades of public investments and regulatory decisions by the City of Champaign enabled the development of new, high-rise housing in Campustown. This included infrastructure upgrades that nullified the risk of flooding in the area, which lessened risk for developers seeking to build large-scale projects. Together, this incentivized denser development near campus. Areas of Champaign-Urbana with more constrained land use regulations did not see a similar increase in student renter populations, although the neighborhood just north of Campustown has begun to attract more students than in the p…
abstract: This paper explores the relationship between student rental housing and other submarkets. I use Champaign-Urbana, Illinois as my case study area — home to the flagship University of Illinois campus. I examine university enrollment data from 1980 to 2018 to track demographic changes in the student population. Then I use decennial census and American Community Survey 5-year estimates from 1990 on to determine the spatial distribution of student renters over time. Finally, I examine shifts in the distribution of rents to determine how the movement of students has affected what Champaign-Urbana’s landlords charge across the metropolitan area. I find evidence that a highly visible expansion of luxury student housing since 2008 in Champaign’s university adjacent Campustown area has thus far accommodated student growth without spillover to other neighborhoods. Over the past four decades, enrollment at the University has increased rapidly, with much of that growth due to international and out-of-state students, and particularly students from Asia. This occurred parallel to substantial tuition increases — a reaction to decreasing state appropriations for higher education. Because international and out-of-state students pay higher tuition rates and are less likely to receive financial aid, I infer I that they also have access to enough income to afford high rents. As enrollment skyrocketed, decades of public investments and regulatory decisions by the City of Champaign enabled the development of new, high-rise housing in Campustown. This included infrastructure upgrades that nullified the risk of flooding in the area, which lessened risk for developers seeking to build large-scale projects. Together, this incentivized denser development near campus. Areas of Champaign-Urbana with more constrained land use regulations did not see a similar increase in student renter populations, although the neighborhood just north of Campustown has begun to attract more students than in the p…
author: Hillyard, Caitlin Amend
language: en
keywords: studentification, rental housing submarkets, housing, higher education, student apartments, land use, urban planning
date published: 2022-01-12T21:46:47Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:52Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113051