Graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill delivered a petition to administrators Monday urging them not to strip away Baity Hill, the campus's only affordable graduate and family housing complex, after nearly half of its residents signed on in protest. The push came during a meeting with Jonathan Sauls, the university's vice chancellor for student success, as families warned they have nowhere else to turn once the university converts the complex to undergraduate housing.
As reported by WUNC News, Carolina Housing notified Baity Hill residents in a January 13, 2026 email that the complex would fully shift to undergraduate housing by Fall 2028, requiring all graduate student families to move out by May 31, 2028. Residents say the decision landed without any prior consultation, according to a petition posted on Action Network. At roughly $1,600 a month, Baity Hill is described as the only affordable on-campus option available to graduate students.
Clayton Ulm, who is studying health behavior at UNC-Chapel Hill, told the station that he and his wife, Chloe, already take out $10,000 in loans every year to support their two children. Chloe Ulm said plainly that Baity Hill is their only option if the university takes it away. Clayton Ulm is set to finish his program in 2029 — one year after the family would be forced out of their housing in 2028. He added that Baity Hill gives families crucial babysitting help, connections, and social support that would be hard to replace off campus.
Why Administrators Say the Housing Has to Go
Sauls told graduate students the housing change is a direct response to the university's undergraduate growth plan, saying UNC-Chapel Hill simply does not have enough housing and must use Baity Hill to accommodate that growth. The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a resolution on September 24, 2026 calling for more aggressive undergraduate enrollment growth. That push follows a record incoming class this fall — 6,325 students, including 5,319 first-year and 1,006 transfer students — marking the university's second consecutive year of record undergraduate intake, per Chapelboro.com.
The enrollment surge traces back to a longer-term demographic worry. UNC-Chapel Hill's share of North Carolina high school graduates attending the university has fallen from 5% to 3.5% over the past three decades, which is why university leaders are targeting at least 5,000 additional undergraduates by 2034, according to Business North Carolina. A 2024 chancellor working group report estimated that growing undergraduate enrollment by 5,000 students while loosening out-of-state admission caps could generate $327 million in cumulative revenue — money the same report says would help maintain in-state tuition freezes, since non-resident students pay substantially higher rates.
Where Displaced Upperclassmen Are Supposed to Go
Nathan Knuffman said the university plans to push upperclassmen into the surrounding community rather than keep them all on campus. The reasoning rests partly on current vacancy numbers: roughly 2,400 apartments sit vacant within five miles of campus and about 4,500 within 10 miles, with another 2,000 or so units currently under construction, Knuffman said. He also said the university is purchasing an apartment complex, though further details were not specified.
That off-campus landscape is already strained for Chapel Hill renters broadly. More than half of local renters spend over 30% of their income on housing, and Orange County data shows a person must earn over $30 an hour to afford a standard two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent, as previously reported by Hoodline. For graduate students on limited stipends, that math looks very different than it does for undergraduates whose families may help cover rent.
A Multi-Year Gap Before Replacement Housing Arrives
UNC-Chapel Hill plans to add 1,000 graduate student housing beds at Carolina North, the university's planned satellite campus, with groundbreaking possibly coming in 2027. But Carolina Housing will not operate the housing options there, and administrators acknowledge a two-to-three-year gap between converting Baity Hill and the opening of Carolina North housing. State procurement documents from May 2025 set a target completion date of July 2029 for the new Carolina North residential buildings, which are planned to house 1,000 graduate students and at least 500 upperclassmen, according to NC eVP filings. That leaves families like the Ulms facing a full year without on-campus housing before any replacement beds are ready.
The Carolina North project itself is already underway at the planning stage. The UNC Board of Trustees approved $8 million in advance planning funds in January 2026 to develop Phase 1 of the 230-acre site at the former Horace Williams Airport, a project Hoodline covered as firms competed for the design contract. Alex Ro said Baity Hill affects which students can even afford to attend UNC-Chapel Hill in the first place, and the complex is also seen as an incentive that helps draw international students to the university.
Funding Flows Toward Growth, Not Replacement Timelines
State lawmakers have already backed the undergraduate expansion financially. Governor Josh Stein signed a state budget in July 2026 allocating $153.9 million across the UNC System for enrollment growth, following a 3.4% statewide enrollment increase in Fall 2025 — with UNC-Chapel Hill itself growing 5.1% that year, outpacing the systemwide average, per Carolina Alumni. The same outlet notes that UNC-Chapel Hill's main campus residence halls average 78 years old, and the university went two decades without building new student housing before its current construction push, which includes a $108 million, 700-bed undergraduate hall replacing the 1940s-era Jackson Hall, set to open in 2028.
For graduate families caught in the gap, the math offers little comfort. Clayton Ulm will finish his program in 2029, one year after his family is set to lose Baity Hill housing in 2028 — the same year undergraduate conversion is scheduled to take effect, well before any Carolina North beds are built. The petition and Monday's meeting with Sauls mark the clearest public pushback yet from the graduate students caught between the university's enrollment ambitions and its housing timeline.
