I went to college in an "urban setting" (i.e. a few blocks away from a very, very bad area) that didn't have enough housing to accommodate everyone who wanted it. They didn't guarantee housing for anyone, even freshmen, and they held a lottery every year to see who got housing the next year. To top it off, a student had to already have housing for the current year to participate in the lottery.
It wasn't a problem for me since I commuted my first two years and then lived in my sorority suite (exempt from the lottery; we got to choose who lived there). But I knew many people who lived too far away to commute who lived in terrible, unsafe, overpriced slums.
Meanwhile, the university continues to buy up half the city and build academic buildings
