Education: Campus Crunch

Students are overbooked and underbunked

"Two's company, three's a crowd," the cliché goes—especially, as claustrophobic college students are learning this fall, when schools shoehorn three roommates into quarters meant for two. College dorms, of course, have been crowded for years. But no one was expecting a bulge this year. Scared by the imminent end of the baby boom, cost-conscious colleges, like airlines overbooking, vastly overaccepted students last spring in an effort to insure enough. When fewer freshmen than usual decided to switch schools at the last minute—coupled with an unexpected back-to-campus movement by upperclassmen newly eager for the convenience of dorms—colleges...

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