When it comes time to decide where to live, UNC graduate students say they are facing a lack of affordable options — especially ones that would place them close to campus.
During discussions Thursday with members of the town’s planning department, graduate students listed proximity to campus, quieter neighborhoods and access to transportation as three of their main housing needs.
For Jeanette Reyes, an environmental science graduate student, finding affordable housing options that fit her lifestyle hasn’t been easy.
“I don’t think a lot of information is distributed about (affordable housing) to us when it’s a concern for all of us,” she said.
Reyes and the six others affiliated with the University at Thursday’s meeting expressed concerns that many of the area’s rental properties are geared more toward undergraduate students who don’t mind crowding into houses to decrease individual rent.
Megan Wooley, a housing and neighborhood services planner for the department, said it is also much harder on graduate students to find housing because they no longer want to live in residence halls.
“We need a variety of housing for a variety of people,” she said.
Most graduate students said they were looking to rent houses for about $500 per month, which was significantly more than the ideal range of $250 to $450 per month suggested by undergraduates at a meeting Wednesday.
Ashley Chaifetz, a public policy graduate student who lives in an apartment in Carrboro, said anything more than this would exceed 40 percent of the $14,000 stipend she receives from the graduate school to cover her expenses.
