UL to end hotel lease for spring semester
After only a year and a half, UL Lafayette will end its lease of extended stay hotel rooms booked to accommodate overflow housing for students.
In August 2024, UL signed two leases with local hotels, valued at $5.5 million. The hotels, WoodSpring Suites and Wingate by Wyndham, provided 205 rooms for students above the university’s housing capacity at the time.
Only the Wingate lease was extended to the 2025 fall semester, with the hotel exclusively leased for students.
“Because of adjustments to our housing strategies and normal levels of attrition, the university will be able to accommodate all students on campus for the spring semester,” UL officials told The Current in an email response. “As a result, we are in the process of ending our contract with the hotel.”
The university said it was working to provide more detailed information on those strategies.
Published:September 252:16 pm UL faces $25 million deficit, interim president reveals Interim President Jaimie Hebert vowed to protect UL’s academic programming as administrators look for reductions.
Interim President Dr. Jaimie Hebert first announced the cancellation at a town hall last week. The move is expected to save the university $900,000.
“In January, all of our students will be back,” Hebert said, addressing the crowd of UL faculty and staff who gathered to hear Hebert explain, for the first time, the serious financial headwinds the university is facing.
UL is staring down a $25 million “structural deficit” requiring substantial cuts to balance. Just as the sobering news came last week, UL announced that it had enrolled its largest freshman class to date and saw overall enrollment grow from last year.
College Mascot Designs
Obscure_Rebel has moved!
Michael Blume
The Current
Hibipix
Kara Finance
Smalljones aka Paul Jones