Before school starts at North Carolina Central University next year, administrators will have to find more space.

"The projections are our incoming class is going to be 1,554," said Jennifer Wilder, Director of Residential Life for the University. "But when we sat up our housing spaces for our freshmen, the projection was the class would be 1,188."

About 120 spaces are now freed up, but NCCU is still 330 short.

"Yesterday, at the Board of Trustees meeting, we asked them for permission to go out to request bids to lease additional beds to be able to accommodate those students," Wilder said. "We probably would've done it earlier had we realized that, but we just didn't anticipate it until now that the numbers are going to come in like they are."

Wilder said the University's admissions office is seeing a 40 percent increase in applications and admits.

"A lot of people are attributing it to the economy," Wilder said. "But I think if we looked back at the information about the population, this may be one of those years ... where you have a larger graduating class from high school."

Whatever is to credit, it could cause the University to lease those additional beds elsewhere.

"It could be hotels ... it could be apartment complexes," Wilder said. "We'll really just have to see what's out there."

There are longer-term plans here.

"We know we need more housing. So we are in the process right now of building," Wilder said. "We're going through the process. We've done the design phase. We've actually picked our contractor and we're hoping to break ground this summer."

The new building is slated to open in 2011 and Wilder doesn't expect the economy to put a damper on it.

"The economy is working in our favor," she said. "We're finding better price points now because the economy is bad so people are looking for work. That's actually working in our favor right now."

In the meantime, some students will get housing priority here.

"For four or five years now, the University's commitment for housing has been to make our incoming freshmen and sophomore students our priority," Wilder said. "What it might mean for upperclassmen is that we might ask the upperclassmen to move to the lease space in order to keep the freshmen on campus."