A look into UMKC’s history as a commuter college

  Statistics from the Fall 2024 semester show that only 7% of the students live in college-owned, operated, or affiliated housing, and 93% of students live off campus. 

    UMKC has been a commuter school since its establishment in 1933, with the first residence hall being built in 1956.

  In Fall 1990, a total of 11,263 students attended UMKC and either lived off campus or in one of two dorms, Cherry Street Hall and Twin Oaks Apartments.

 Obtained from a newspaper from the UMKC archives, Cherry Street Hall was built in 1956 and cost one million dollars to build. It was four stories tall and was first only available to men. 46 students who graduated from the university lived in the dorm in 1957.

  The men-only dormitory only lasted a couple of years, as 21 women moved into Cherry Street Hall in Sept. of 1958. 

  The hall could house 290 students, with two students sharing each room. All freshmen men not living in Kansas City who were under 21 were required to live at the residence hall. 

  Twin Oaks Apartments were purchased by UMKC in 1998 for student housing, which stayed open until Spring 2005, when UMKC announced it would be demolishing the building following deterioration of the apartment complex.

  In a podcast interview, Chris Wolfe, the manager of UMKC bookstores, said that the campus was always intended to be a commuter campus. 

  “From the very beginning, they didn’t build their first residence hall here at the University until 1956. It was only a few hundred beds, and for many years, we had over 10,000 students, and only a handful lived here on campus. We’ve tried to correct that in the last 20 years,” said Wolfe.

  Current students who commute sometimes struggle with the lack of student life on campus because of the large number of commuter students.

“It takes me 12 minutes to get to UMKC from my house,” said Jett Gunter, a business administration student. “I wish UMKC was a state school because you hear and participate so much more going on around campuses like at KU and MU.”

  In fact, some students claimed that UMKC feels like a “ghost town” on the weekends, but the KC metro is a big area where a lot of students find other stuff to do on the weekends that does not involve being on or near campus. 

 Students who live on campus may not need to pay for a parking permit since the dorms are on campus, potentially at the cost of not having their own transportation to other places around the area.

  A majority of the students who live on campus currently live in coed dorms, Johnson and Oak Hall or Hospital Hill and Rockhill apartments.

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