School Offers $500 Gift Cards for Students to Live Off Campus

— -- Faced with a shortage of on-campus student housing this fall, Washington, D.C.-based American University is offering an incentive to students to go find somewhere else to live.

Students who agree to leave their housing assignments will be given a $500 gift card, ABC station WJLA-TV reported. In addition, American University would waive the $500 housing termination fee to the students who plan to cancel their on-campus housing this fall.

The students were notified of the offer by email in early June, and the deadline was this past Thursday, according to American University student paper The Eagle.

The housing shortage is blamed on an increase in the number of returning and new students, Sasha Gamburg, the assistant director of operations for assignments and dining, told The Eagle. “Because of the increased demand for housing, we were not able to accommodate all students seeking housing,” she said.

Sarah Preston, a senior, didn’t bite on the offer and said she would plan to remain in her assigned dorm. She and other students said it would be difficult to find reasonably priced housing outside of campus this time of the year.

“To be honest, $500 to me wasn't that much of an incentive to really want to take it,” she said.

There are no details on how many students accepted the offer.

This is the second time American University provided incentives for students to reconsider living on campus. It did something similar back in May.