When students leave home for the collegial atmosphere of a university dormitory, they don’t expect to end up at a nearby hotel. But that’s exactly what happened to approximately 25 male Oakland University students.

At the start of the school year, there was a 16 percent increase over last year’s already overbooked occupancy, according to housing director Jim Zentmeyer.

Due to on-campus housing demands, a block of 30 rooms at Homestead Studio Suites — located on University Drive, down the street from the university — have been reserved for OU students displaced because of overcrowded residence halls. These students expressed a need to live on or close to campus because for various reasons, including location.

Zentmeyer said that OUs dorm population is usually comprised of more males. Conversely, the composite campus student population has more females. In 2010, there were 3,164 more females enrolled in the university than males, according to reports from the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Currently the hotel rooms are booked for three weeks, but Zentmeyer said that he is confident that the students will be in the university by then, as students (mostly women) remove themselves from student housing at various times for different reasons.

“We will be bringing them back onto campus as quickly as space occurs,” he said. “I’m confident that we will be able to handle the individuals that are in the Homestead location before then … our aim is to have this taken care of in three weeks or less. If not, we will revisit that on a case by case basis to see what their desire is … our department is firm to support those students.”

Of the 100 students initially living in hotels, 15 have been placed on campus since Thursday.

The students who are staying in the hotels are not paying for the hotels directly. The costs are coming from the housing fee they’ve already paid over the summer.

Students have access to the regular amenities from the hotel and senior resident assistants are staying overnight with the students to make sure they’re monitored. The Bear Bus is also available for transportation to the university.

In addition to the 25 students in the hotel, 60 more male students are currently on a wait list to get into housing. However, housing options for women who’d like to live on campus are more available due to vacancy on women’s floors in the dorms.

Zentmeyer attributes the high increase in campus housing is due to an increased interest in the campus community.

“With the activity on campus, people want to live here and that’s wonderful. We’re moving toward that community-feel at OU,” Zentmeyer said. “Oakland is a place where more and more people are being drawn to. With the growth of the new medical school, health and human services building and the engineering building, Oakland is making that a priority.”

Though it usually costs upwards of $300 to cancel a housing contract, the students on the wait list will not be charged if they decide they no longer want to live on campus.

The inaugural class of the William Beaumont School of Medicine has hardly contributed to the issue. Only five medical school students chose to live on campus, and most of them are living in the George Matthews apartments.

Despite of the increase in students, single rooms were not an option again this year for students who wished to live alone.

Christine Aranda, a transfer student, was upset when the room she applied for through Disability Support Services didn’t work out.

“At first I was worried because I thought they were going to put me into a dorm room with four or five other people, but I was given an apartment instead,” she said. “We all applied for a single room through the DSS office, and were enraged when we found out we were put into a three bedroom apartment … we had anxiety attacks about it … I know I personally had a whole week where I was freaking out and went to two therapy sessions rather than one that week. I ended up liking my suitemates, though.”

Zentmeyer said he’s drafted a plan — different from his 2009 proposal — for a new housing unit to go out to the board of trustees that he hopes would add 440 beds to the university for the 2012-13 year.

“We want to make sure that it runs parallel with everyone else’s programs,” he said. “We want to make sure there is a buy in from BOT and that everyone that ought to be a part of the project can be.”

He explained that the housing costs for a new building are fiscally separate from the ones the school endures from new academic buildings.

“We (at university housing) are purely auxiliary,” he said. “We do not see a single dollar from the government. The debt of a new residence hall is a debt the department will take on, as far as that’s concerned.”