San Francisco, CA- The proposal to force struggling sophomores at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to live in dormitories is either a strategy to fill 900 empty dorm beds, or an attempt to improve struggling students' academic shortcomings.

If you ask University Regent Tim Clare, requiring the sophomores that are currently on academic probation to remain within the dorms would help in both categories.

"Those students who are struggling, we need to do what we can to help them," he said. "This, I think, would help them."

UNL Spokesperson Kelly Bartling stated that any strategy will be focused first-and-foremost on improving students' academic performance and quality of life.

"We'll be looking at anything that benefits students," she said.

There has been a decline of nearly 400 students since last fall, which affected the University's bottom line, and left leaders looking for a way to fill the lacking fill of capacity.

"Our occupancy was down this year because our enrollment was down," said Sue Gildersleeve, the university's housing director.

One of the keys filling the empty beds is to recruit new students, as the school attempts to meet UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman's goal of adding 6,000 students within four years. The school has instead seen a decline in recent admission by nearly 400 individuals.

If the measure passes and sophomores are required to remain in dorms, the school would be following in the footsteps of Ohio State University, which also is considering requiring all sophomores to live on campus by 2015.

It could be rather difficult for the school to accommodate all sophomores, says Glidersleeve. But the school is already slated to open two new suite-style residence halls in next two years, as it closes older halls.

The new residence will have over 1,000 beds, compared the 900 beds in the older rooms.

"We certainly wouldn't have all sophomores to live on campus without adding more beds to our inventory," Gildersleeve said.

As for the empty beds, Glidersleeve stated that the university does not actually literally have 900 beds sitting unused. Many rooms despite being created to hold two.

"We're obviously concerned about the vacancies as well," he said. "We're also very confident that our enrollment growth is going to materialize."

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