A federal report released Wednesday projected that heating bills for the Midwest this winter could skyrocket as much as 61 percent, potentially affecting costs for students living on and off campus.
The report, one in a series of Short Term Energy Outlooks issued by the Energy Information Administration, warned that natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita combined with increases in consumption, have left states like Wisconsin vulnerable to price hikes for natural gas.
With off-campus buildings and university housing primarily reliant on natural gas and coal in the winter, increases in the price of heat could translate into higher rent and dorm costs for students at the UW-Madison.
According to a representative at Rouse Management, a Madison rental agency with apartments in the downtown and campus area, the rental market in general is soft so it is usually hard to raise tenants' payments. With students, though, the agency has been able to raise rents to cover natural gas charges.
However, students will be less likely to encounter an increased living rate this season than a landlord or the university making cuts elsewhere to absorb heating costs.
\For property owners that... have to pay for the heat, it definitely has an impact. It comes out someplace,"" said Steve Brown, owner of Steve Brown Apartments. ""If you don't have enough money to fix the properties up or take care of them, eventually somebody suffers for it.""
""We know that there will be a sharp increase for heating costs this winter,"" UW-Madison Housing Director Paul Evans said. ""Our response most likely would not be any kind of rate increase during the year... you look at other things you can cut. That may be projects you were hoping to do, large purchases like furniture or equipment.
""Maybe you have to put that off because that money has to be used to pay for heat,"" he added.
A potential upside to the projected rise in heating bills is that it will force many to be conscious of the amount of energy they consume.
""If the prices get too high and the residents are paying for utilities there'll be more energy conservation, probably,"" Brown said. ""But that's not to say property owners don't try to improve the property energy efficiency, too.\
