While next year’s off-campus housing policy has not yet been finalized, Grinnell College administration does not anticipate major changes to the number of students permitted to live off campus for the 2026-27 academic year, said Ellen de Graffenreid, vice president of communications and marketing. This response comes after students expressed uncertainty over recent changing housing policies. Last year, the College limited off-campus housing to fourth-year students for the 2025-26 academic year.
The College held its first meeting to plan 2026-27 housing policy on Monday, Sept. 15, according to de Graffenreid. She emphasized that it is too early in the planning process to make any definitive statement, but pointed to the reopening of Loose Hall as a reason to expect off-campus housing policy next year to be largely unchanged. The reopening of Loose resulted in a larger number of housing units on campus in 2025-26 than there were in 2024-25. No similar increase in the College’s housing availability will occur before the start of next school year, de Graffenreid said.
De Graffenreid said students can expect next year’s off campus policy to be finalized and communicated sometime in October.
Students who had already signed leases expressed frustration with what they felt was a lack of communication by the College about off-campus housing, and worried about losing their down payments if the number of off-campus slots were to be decreased. While the College’s official off-campus residency policy stipulates that students must wait until they have approval from Residence Life to live off campus before signing a lease, many students say the competitive Grinnell rental housing market makes waiting impractical. While housing applications for the 2025-26 school year were open by September, housing applications for 2026-27 won’t be open until October at the earliest.
“I know I wasn’t supposed to,” said Owen Hope `27, who has already signed a lease for an apartment on East Street next year. “Technically, I’m supposed to wait, but you can’t get a lease for a house next year unless you pay in the summer. That’s the only way to do it.”
Neva Zamil `27 and Luke Byrnes `27 also signed leases for the 2026-27 school year with a group of friends. “We were originally looking at a place for all four of us, but we were closed out of that place. The landlord had another interested party who signed that lease,” said Byrnes. “So that freaks you out, being like ‘Oh, I’m gonna have to live on campus, because I’m being closed out of this, I’d better sign it now.’”
Byrnes added, “What we’ve been told by juniors and seniors and graduates is that you should lock down your house as soon as possible.”
Zamil, Byrnes and Hope all cited cost and accessibility as advantages to living off campus.
“The number one advantage is that it’s more cost-effective,” said Hope, noting that his one year off-campus lease costs about the same as one semester of on-campus housing.
Byrnes and Zamil said having a large kitchen off campus was important to them for dietary reasons.
“Luke [Byrnes] and I both also have severe dietary restrictions that make eating at D-Hall every single day not very nutritious and not very delicious. Or even feasible,” said Zamil.
“My entire diet for my first two years here was raw tofu and whatever vegetables they had sauteed at the vegan station,” said Byrnes. “I’m also, for religious reasons, very concerned about cross-contamination with meat. I’m very committed to that, and so sometimes I don’t feel comfortable eating in D-Hall.”
Zamil and Byrnes, who are currently roommates in a Gates apartment-style dorm, say that having a kitchen this year has improved their quality of life immensely, but that it’s still too small to be adequate for daily cooking. While larger kitchen facilities exist in Renfrow Hall and other College-owned buildings, both said securing a room with a large kitchen on campus is easier said than done.
“We applied to live in Renfrow, and we were denied. We didn’t trust that the construction on Loose would be done, so we didn’t apply to live there,” said Byrnes.
In an email to The S&B, Autumn Wilke, associate chief diversity officer for disability resources, wrote that Disability Services had no plans to change their accommodation policies in the coming academic year. Byrnes and Zamil did not seek official accommodations for their kitchen needs.
Students also expressed worry about the impact further reductions to off-campus housing could have on the community and culture at Grinnell.
Byrnes explained that many Grinnell traditions that once took place on campus, such as 10/10, a popular, student-run tradition where Grinnellians travel between house parties throughout the day, are now hosted at off-campus residences.
Hope also pointed out that without off-campus locations for these social events, the potential negative impacts could spill over onto the campus itself.
“I would worry that if there were less fourth years allowed to live off campus, then you would see more disruption on campus and in the dorms,” said Owen Hope `27.
Zamil emphasized that the benefit of off-campus housing to the student community goes far beyond partying and drinking. More importantly, she said, off-campus homes are a place to build connections and community outside academic life.
“They’re not creating third spaces on campus, and the third spaces that once existed, they’re slowly shutting down, like Lyle’s [Pub], Bob’s [Underground], the game room in the Harris Center that’s locked all the time,” said Zamil. “All of these spaces that are supposedly provided to make life at Grinnell not just about academics aren’t there anymore. Where are we supposed to go?”
