When housing fills up at small colleges, employee basements, hotels can be dorm alternatives

This Friday, Aug. 7, 2015, shows Southern Utah University's Brad Niederhauser, Building Repairs & Renovations Supervisor, left, and Chris Ralphs, Director of University Housing, building a bunk bed in Cedar Hall South on the campus of Southern Utah University, in Cedar City, Utah. This fall, an enrollment boom that created a housing crisis is prompting Southern Utah University to urge neighbors and employees alike to house the dormless, including hundreds of incoming freshmen who wanted to live on campus. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (The Associated Press)

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In this Friday, Aug. 7, 2015, student Emilee Gull cleaning a dorm room in Eccles Living Learning Center at Southern Utah University, in Cedar City, Utah. This fall, an enrollment boom that created a housing crisis is prompting Southern Utah University to urge neighbors and employees alike to house the dormless, including hundreds of incoming freshmen who wanted to live on campus. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (The Associated Press)

In this Friday, Aug. 7, 2015 photo, Southern Utah University's Chris Ralphs, director of university housing, walks outside of Cedar Hall South on the campus of Southern Utah University, in Cedar City, Utah. This fall, an enrollment boom that created a housing crisis is prompting Southern Utah University to urge neighbors and employees alike to house the dormless, including hundreds of incoming freshmen who wanted to live on campus. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (The Associated Press)

CEDAR CITY, Utah – Incoming freshman Gabrielle Szczerbiak isn't getting the traditional college housing experience she expected. She will have a roommate, though, but there are also rules — no boys in the bedrooms and a curfew.

The rules aren't being imposed by a dorm — they're actually the wishes of the married couple who are taking in the 18-year-old after she got stalled on a rural Utah university's housing waitlist.

An enrollment boom has prompted Southern Utah University in Cedar City to urge neighbors and employees to house the dormless.

It's not uncommon for a small college to get creative when campus housing fills up, sending freshmen to such dorm alternatives as local hotels or rival schools.

But housing officials say they've never heard of a college putting up students in the spare bedrooms of employees and residents.

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