UNM has seen a rise in on-campus living, leaving many students in close quarters.
University spokeswoman Karen Wentworth said nothing can be done to improve the situation this semester.
"Short term, there is not much that can happen - we only have so many dorm rooms," she said.
Wentworth said the increase in on-campus living has occasionally shoveled three students into rooms designed for two.
A resident advisor, who spoke on a condition of anonymity for fear of getting fired, said many students in his dorm were notified there would be a third person joining their rooms.
But Walter Miller, associate vice president of Student Life, said that wasn't the case, adding that there was no way to predict the number of students who would be living on campus.
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Miller said the total capacity of the dorms is 2,400 students, and there are 2,396 right now.
"We have never hit capacity, but with the freshman class size, we will exceed the past numbers," he said.
Wentworth said there are 3,190 freshmen enrolled this semester, a nearly 10 percent increase over last year.
Blake Reece, a resident in Santa Clara, said he requested a single but received an e-mail the week he was moving in that said he would be sharing a room due to overcrowding. He said he was told the University was not expecting so many people to apply for the dorms.
"They underestimated, by a lot, how many people were supposed to be in a dorm," Reece said.
Miller said the dorms are now housing students to the full extent they were intended.
"We are going back to the original design capacity of the facilities," he said.
Miller said he and the Board of Regents authorized the construction of a new dorm facility with 500 to 1,000 new beds. The project has been taken over by the Lobo Real Estate Development Corporation, which will begin the long pre-construction process by securing zoning permits in the next few weeks, Miller said.
"We need to do it quickly so we can have an impact on the campus as soon as possible," Miller said.
The number of students still living in the dorms will be reviewed two weeks after classes start, he said.
"We are working with students on an individual basis to try to meet their needs," Miller said. "It's not a quick process, because you've got a fixed situation, so we ask people to have a little patience, but we are trying to meet their needs."
