When school starts, there’s a certain kind of stress: worry about classes, roommates, and getting used to a new routine. So far this summer, the tension at Raleigh, North Carolina’s Shaw University has been replaced by something heavier. A lot of them don’t know if they’ll even have a place to live yet.
Shaw told WRAL that Looks into the fact that one of the university’s four dorms, Dimple Newsome, won’t be able to reopen until the fall of 2027, after a fire shut it down in February. Another dorm, Fleming Kee, is still closed indefinitely; the school’s own 2024 fire safety report says it was already closed at that time. That only leaves two residence halls, TOS 1 and TOS 2, for the students who will be starting the new school year on August 12. Classes will start on August 12, and students can start moving in as early as August 7.
Families were told by the university on July 17, less than a month before move-in, that housing would only be available in TOS 1 and TOS 2. There would be no single or private room options, and first- and second-year students would be given priority. That message was a gut punch for adults.
Little learned that her senior son might not have a dorm room this year. “It’s devastating news because it’s his senior year,” she said. Since then, his family has found him a place to stay with a grandparent in Durham. To get to Shaw’s campus in downtown Raleigh, he has to drive for at least 45 minutes each way. That’s not a small problem for a senior in college. What the year was supposed to look like has been changed.
The timing is what makes this harder to understand. Families who had planned and budgeted for on-campus housing are now scrambling to find other options weeks before school starts. The university said it had given students information about places to stay off campus, such as places that offer special rates to Shaw students. That’s interesting. It’s a whole different question whether it’s enough.
There’s also the issue of safety that hasn’t been solved yet. According to the Raleigh Fire Inspection reports, both Fleming Kee and TOS 1 were put on fire watch on July 10. This is what needs to be done when fire protection systems are temporarily down or being serviced. Shaw confirmed that TOS 1 is under a precautionary fire watch while the university works to fix “an outstanding fire protection system deficiency.” That flaw hasn’t been named by the university, and inspection records don’t fill in the blanks.
Take a moment to think about that. One of the only two dorms that will be open to students this fall has a broken fire system. This happened at the same time that a fire destroyed another dorm.
Little has asked for her family to be reimbursed for the extra costs they’ve had since Dimple Newsome closed, such as transportation, making other plans, and dealing with the disruption. The university’s answer is that students who won’t be able to live on campus in 2026–27 have not been charged housing fees, so there are no costs to be reimbursed. Technically correct, maybe. But it doesn’t take into account the costs that families have already paid for in real life. At least one student told WRAL Investigates that the housing situation made him decide to leave the university for good.
In his statement, Shaw says that “securing housing is an important concern for students and families” and promises to keep in touch. We still don’t know if that communication will come in time and with enough information. WRAL asked when students would be told for sure what rooms they were assigned. There was no answer.
Most of the time, the quiet is the loudest part for families like Little’s. Moving from Durham to Raleigh every day for senior year wasn’t what anyone planned. The rush is still going strong, with three weeks to go until move-in.
