U.S. Student Housing Occupancy Posts Second-Best Level Since 2019

U.S. student housing occupancy reached 95.1% for the start of the 2025 academic year, the second-highest level since 2019, Yardi Matrix reported. The strong preleasing reported earlier in the year consistently carried through to fall move-ins for the 1,600 student housing properties serving the Yardi 200 colleges and universities, the firm said in its latest National Student Housing Report.

The majority of schools (112) saw occupancy increase year over year, although 73 reported lower occupancy compared to September 2024. However, just 32 schools failed to reach 90% occupancy, compared to 50 the year prior.

Conversely, rent growth across the Yardi 200 slowed to 0.8% year-over-year as of September, declining from 4.5% at the start of the academic season. More than half the Yardi 200 markets saw lower annual rent growth than in 2024. Yet several markets bucked the national trend, posting stronger leasing season rent gains than the previous year.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 16-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 7-10 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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