Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have unveiled plans to build dorms that will relieve pressure on the Cambridge housing market, earning praise from Planning Board members at the annual town gown reports meeting on Feb. 4.
Nearly 8,000 students from Harvard, MIT, Lesley and the Hult International Business School lived in off-campus private housing last year. That’s more than one-third of the entire student population in Cambridge, a population that has grown steadily from around 18,000 in 2000 to nearly 25,000 in 2024, with the city housing 69 percent of them.
Universities said they are making efforts to provide housing, particularly to graduate students, who make up the bulk of off-campus Cambridge residents. In August, MIT opened its Graduate Junction residence at 269 Vassar St., in Area II, adding 675 beds to “fill MIT’s Volpe zoning commitment to expand graduate student housing,” Joe Higgins, vice president for campus services and stewardship, told the Planning Board.
With this development, combined with the 400 beds it added in 2023, MIT exceeded its commitment of providing 950 new beds, allowing the university to house up to 47 percent of graduate students in school-owned or affiliated housing.
Harvard has the capacity to house 50 percent of its graduate students, “which remains the university’s benchmark and is competitive with peer institutions,” according to its town-gown report. Construction is also underway across the river in Allston that will add 546 beds within walking distance of Harvard Square for graduate students and affiliates.
The board commended the institutions – the city’s top two employers since 1986 – for their efforts to alleviate a housing shortage. “MIT and Harvard have both made strides,” board chair Mary Flynn said. “I think the willingness is there.”
Wider comparison still lacks
Housing capacity was also top of mind at Lesley and Hult. As part of right-sizing the campus, Lesley sold off several properties, including two parking lots at 1826 and 1840 Massachusetts Ave. “We basically supported affordable housing in the city of Cambridge through some of our choices with our property sales,” Lesley chief operations officer Joanne Kossuth said.
Hult is looking to maximize its 500-bed residence hall, which is not at capacity, and is exploring ways to incentivize students to stay on campus. The business school also expects a decline in enrollment among its largely international student body due to federal political changes restricting immigration.
Some board members wondered for the second year how Cambridge compares with neighboring communities in student housing capacity. Scott Walker, Cambridge’s senior manager for data services, did not have regional data but promised to provide more clarity next time – after last year punting the question to the presenting universities, who did not provide any more insight than they did in 2024.
“That’s a good suggestion,” Walker said. “We had some discussion of that last year, so I will look to see if I can bring in some more regional statistics.”
Of the city’s land mass, 499 acres are owned by the universities, up by 11 from last year – almost all taxable, Walker said, due to the school’s real estate arm taking on the job of developing a part of Kendall Square owned by the federal Volpe transportation agency. That brings all university-owned land to 128 taxable acres and 371 nontaxable.
The city’s 2024 Town Gown Report Summary is here.
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25537859-021725i-town-gown-summary/?embed=1
Recurring concerns
Despite the board’s warm reception, the few residents who made public comments at the meeting seemed unconvinced by the universities’ commitment to community engagement.
There was a time MIT was asked to house all of its graduate students on land it owns, James Williamson said. “Everybody’s talking about a housing crisis in the city, and I think the universities aren’t doing enough to take responsibility for their impact in the community,” he said, referring to Harvard and MIT. Williamson also questioned how accessible college campuses are to the public since the Covid pandemic.
Echoing this, Peggy Kutcher asked universities to double down on their commitment to “have permeability in their physical spaces with the public.” She also expressed disappointment at Lesley’s failing to provide space for senior tai chi and yoga classes.
Kutcher spoke at last year’s meeting to raise the same concern, but Lesley did not implement any changes in response.
Focus on sustainability
In addition to housing, the reports spoke at length about the universities’ sustainability efforts.
MIT’s program to identify “cool spots” was among the top cited initiatives. It partnered with the city this summer to identify and publicize these spots – indoor, air-conditioned spaces around campus that were open to the public. It also launched an online inventory of all trees on campus to facilitate urban forest management.
Harvard tripled to $37 million its Green Revolving Fund, which provides interest-free loans to sustainability innovation projects on campus, to accelerate building decarbonization and overhauled its sustainable building standards.
Lesley is taking steps to balance energy use across buildings, and made plans for plantings on campus.
Planning Board members thanked the institutions for continuing to bring forth creative climate change solutions and sharing them with the city. “Climate change is here,” vice chair Tom Sieniewicz said in response to MIT’s cool spots initiative. “And it has very real health effects on the citizens of Cambridge, so announcing and advertising where people can get relief … thank you.”
The town gown reports can be found here.
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In 2000 there were 3,780 students with no affiliate housing from these universities living in Cambridge.
In 2015 that number jumped to 6,247, and last year it was up to 8,113.
Clearly these institutions are not doing enough to house their students and the PB is handing out participation trophies.
It’s easy to get down on the universities, but they are building very dense housing, much denser than the wider community. We have the responsibility to follow their lead.
I’m all for more student housing, and was glad to see the new MIT dorm rising on Vassar. But not all students want or need to live in a dorm!
My wife grew up in the area, and we both lived and worked here for a year before she started at HLS. I worked while she was in school. Now she’s graduated, working full-time, and I might start a master’s program in Cambridge in the fall. Should we have to move back and forth into student housing, and remove ourselves from the community we love, depending on our student status? Grad students are real people too, at every stage of life – no one plan fits all.
It’s also risky to have housing tied to your job. A lot of our HLS friends deferred a year because of COVID. Or now, researchers’ employment is threatened by Trump’s cruelty and ignorance. Losing your job AND your home at the same time is a recipe for disaster.
Let’s build more homes, of all types, because life is messy sometimes.
I agree with Neil. It’s great that universities are building housing, but not all grad students want to live in dorms. Many have families, have working spouses, may be returning to school after working, or may be ready to live in the community and start their lives after undergrad.
Grad school is basically a full time job. In many programs students receive a modest stipend to cover living expenses, finish classes in the first year or two, and then work 50+ hours a week. Sure it’s technically school, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
I was a grad student at MIT in the early ’00s. After a miserable first year in the dorm, I wanted out. I moved into a Somerville triple decker with classmates for significantly less than MIT was charging. A couple years later I moved in with my now wife, and we’ve been in the same Cambridge neighborhood for almost 18 years.
Grad students are people who want to live their lives how they see fit.
Universities are building housing, yet these efforts face opposition from the same people who resist any new construction. Tufts, for example, is trying to build a new dorm, but neighbors are pushing back. The problem isn’t universities—it’s NIMBYism.
From 1980 to 2020, Cambridge added about 45,000 jobs but only 12,600 housing units. Even if MIT and Harvard housed all their grad students, it would barely make a dent in the crisis.
Besides, as others have noted, not everyone wants to live in a dorm. Would you want to be told where to live?