Last semester, several AUBG students had an unpleasant experience with their university accommodation because there were not enough rooms in the dormitories for everyone. As a consequence, these students were forced to stay at Hotel “Merida”.

AUBG managed to deal with that problem– and, from the start of the spring semester, no AUBG students are living in the hotel. However, that issue only raised more questions about what the future holds for AUBG and the university's plans for the next academic years.

The president of AUBG, David Evans, and the Residence Life Director, Ilko Drenkov, gave more information on the important questions regarding housing and the future of AUBG.

What is the reason behind the increase in the student body of AUBG?

The AUBG strategic plan 2022-2027 includes an increase in the student body of the university by 50% within those five years. David Evans pointed out two main reasons behind that decision. 

The first reason is the university’s financial independence. That is why more and more students will be accepted in the next five years. “We are fine financially, but we want to have more financial flexibility,” he said.

The other reason is linked with the America for Bulgaria Foundation. “America for Bulgaria Foundation would like us to be less reliant on them,” Evans said. 

America for Bulgaria was giving AUBG close to $2M for scholarships for Bulgarian students in the past, which was about 15% of the university’s total budget, but they are not doing that anymore. “We had to replace this money with money from somewhere else,” Evans said.

Evans also commented on the criteria for acceptance, “To be clear, we are not going to lower academic standards, the goal is to keep the academic standard as high as it is now or increase it,” and said that it would be easier financially if the university is larger.

How is AUBG going to accommodate its students?

AUBG is going to implement a completely new housing policy to deal with the acceptance of more students. The old policy was seniority-based, while the new one will favor the younger students. 

Freshmen and sophomores will be the first ones who will be given a chance to select a room as they will be obliged to live in the dormitories. Juniors and seniors will be last on the line for a place in the Residence Halls.

“My clear message is we are not kicking any one of them [out], we are just giving preference based on maturity to first-year students and sophomores, and we are requesting for their cooperation and understanding and in the most optimistic way of development, we will be able to meet all their desires for accommodation,” Drenkov said.

He wants to convince the students that AUBG learned its lesson from the last semester’s housing problem and said, “I hope we will not refuse anyone who wants to live on campus.”

Can the housing problem of the last semester occur once again?

AUBG higher authorities said they have learned from the mistakes they made with the accommodation last semester and now they have come up with a strategy to prevent it.

There will be a fixed number of beds for first-year students. “It is possible that we will set aside some extra space for new first-year students and release it in June, like 20 spaces,” Evans said. 

The Residence Life Director said that if there are more freshmen than a fixed number of beds, Admissions will be alarmed (late July/early August) and will have to add a small amendment that students who have applied that late will not be provided housing. 

“Student who decides at a late stage of his contemplation process to join AUBG should be ready to digest the inconvenience of no housing,” said Drenkov. His advice for every student is to pay the needed deposit on time to ensure they have their promised bed.

What will be the university’s approach to fourth-year students who want to stay on campus? 

“We would probably have around 1100 students in the fall. We have about 710 spaces in the residence halls and, let’s say, around 450 first-year and second-year students in the residence halls,” Evans said. “That leaves us 375 people and 260 spaces.” So, most probably, there will not be enough rooms in Skapto to accommodate all seniors who want to stay on campus. 

According to Evans, there are a couple of ways to deal with the demand of juniors and seniors for accommodation – the completely fair way, in his opinion, is a lottery, and the other way is to prioritize the students with the highest GPAs. “We still have not made this plan,” Evans said.

Drenkov suggested the idea of first come, first served as the most appropriate way for the university to deal with the issue.

Some juniors and seniors have already expressed their resentment toward the new housing policy. “There will always be someone unsatisfied, but based on my experience with juniors and seniors, I am an optimist that there will be enough places in Skaptos for everybody who wants to live there,” he said.

What is the current plan for building a new Skaptopara wing?

In the last few years, there has been a lot of talk regarding the construction of either a new Skaptopara 3 wing or a Skaptopara 4, but nothing has been done yet.

Drenkov had a positive approach toward the dormitory expansion. “Skapto 3 – two new wings will be discussed and will be constructed hopefully in 2-3 years,” he said.

Evans said he hopes the new Skapto 3 wings will be done by Fall’26 but was not optimistic about a future university expansion. “One of our challenges is that there is no more physical space in Blagoevgrad for us,” he said. 

What are the future development plans for the university and how will they change campus life at AUBG?

The first main change of AUBG was the increase in housing and student activity fees, starting in Fall’23. Drenkov explained that due to the pandemic, the housing fee had not been increased for years, so with the inflation happening right now, that change was needed.

AUBG expressed another future desire - an increase in the number of foreign students in the university. Evans said, “One of our strategic goals is for 10% of the students to be from the US.” He also said that although the student body is increasing right now, he cannot see the university having 3000 students, for example.

“My goal is to preserve the essential identity of the institution as it grows,” Evans said. “We’ve got this transitional period for the next few years which is going to be inconvenient.”

According to Drenkov, the growth of the university will be beneficial. “Students will discover that they have to cherish much more on-campus living,” he said, “In terms of tolerance and quality of on-campus life, for sure, we will be witnessing a lot of improvement.”

Recently, the Student Government sent an email in which they expressed concerns about the rapid growth of AUBG. However, one thing looks sure, whether the students like it or not, the university will continue its expansion in the upcoming years. Only time will tell how successful that strategy is going to be for AUBG.