At the same time, significant numbers of graduate students from both Harvard and MIT live off-campus. Under Reich’s plan neither university would be financially penalized for graduate students’ effects on the housing supply.
Harvard and MIT currently provide housing for just under 40 percent of their graduate population, about 11,100 and just over 5,000 students, respectively.
Both institutions are now in the process of constructing additional graduate housing units.
According to the Cambridge town -gown report, over 4,000 graduate students from Harvard and MIT live in Cambridge in off campus in non-affiliated housing.
Reich’s plan to increase affordable housing also includes plans to restore the Department of Housing and Community Development to cabinet level status, reform housing legislation, and put unused state land toward new public housing.
—Lauren R. Dorgan contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Christopher M. Loomis can be reached at cloomis@fas.harvard.edu.