Lefton: Kent has 'Glut' of Student Housing

If you ask President Lester Lefton about private student housing in Kent, he'll tell you the Tree City has too much.

"There is, if anything, a glut," Lefton said Wednesday.

The response followed the in Twinsburg and was prompted by a question from a reporter.

"I've been quite vocal over the last three years saying we don't need more private development housing," Lefton said.

To start this school year Kent saw the opening of three large student apartment complexes that brought more than 1,700 new beds targeted at student renters. The large influx of new student apartments includes the and complexes.

The third large complex, , experienced construction delays that f in hotel rooms to start the new year.

The university has scuttled student dormitories in recent years by demolishing much of the former Small Group residence hall complex and by systematically

Lefton said the university has no plans to build new student residence halls despite recent numbers. He said any further growth would be due to improved retention rates of existing and incoming students.

He called the idea to create more student housing in Kent a "bad investment."

"Because we're not going to continue to grow our student body until we're 65,000 students," Lefton said. "We're not done, but we are asymptoting because we don't expect to increase the size of the freshman class overall."