With spring semester quickly approaching, the number of students moving out of USC Housing is expected to be lower than usual, but more freshmen and transfer spring admits who applied for university owned housing will be accepted than in previous years.

As of Wednesday, 281 students have canceled their contracts with USC Housing for three main reasons: studying abroad, graduating early or moving into their fraternity or sorority houses, wrote Keenan Cheung, director of USC Housing, in an email.

“That number will go up because people will decide not to come back to school during break … within 10 to 15 percent,” he said.

This is because fewer students opted to live in USC-owned housing this year than in past years, leaving beds vacant during the course of this semester in addition to those that are opening up at the close of the semester.

“We had roughly 300 freshmen apply for housing and we had 140-ish transfers apply for housing,” Cheung said. “So based on the move-out rate, we were able to offer all freshmen housing and we were able to offer a majority of the transfers housing.”

Cheung said he does not know why fewer students applied for housing this academic year, but said USC Housing is offering the same amount of spots as usual.

Students can cancel their housing contracts at any point during the year, but to do so, students or USC Housing must find other interested students to take over their contract and be willing to lose their $400 deposit. Otherwise, a student will not be able to cancel his or her contract.

“Students can cancel in the middle of the semester,” Cheung said. “It is however more difficult to find replacements at this time because most students already have housing arrangements.”

Likewise, students can also break their contracts if they meet either of two requirements: if the student is not registered for classes spring semester because he or she is graduating or taking a leave of absence, or if the student agrees to pay USC Housing a $250 cancellation fee to help them find a replacement.

Students who are studying abroad in the spring and or graduating in December are not penalized by USC Housing and do not lose their confirmation fee when they cancel their contracts, Cheung said.

“You go to the Office of Overseas Studies and they sign a housing release form that confirms we’re going on a USC-sponsored program,” said Mark Pises, a sophomore majoring in political science who is traveling to Madrid in the spring. “Then we take that form to the housing office … and we will be released at the end of the [fall] semester.”

The Office of Overseas Studies assists students who live off campus in subletting their rooms or apartments before they go abroad.

“We have a message board on our website where [students] can post housing,” said Veronica Gomez, the overseas studies program assistant. “Students going abroad put down their available housing. Students who come back from going abroad check the message board upon returning to USC.”

Other students, however, break their contracts with USC Housing for other reasons.

Brianne Ryan, a sophomore majoring in fine arts, said she moved out of Birnkrant Residential College dormitory and into the Sigma Delta Tau sorority house last year after the fall semester, because she was elected to the sorority’s executive board.

“It was very easy,” she said. “[USC Housing] had me fill out a form and they told me they’d let me know if someone would take my room, and within 48 hours they called and someone wanted my room, so it was done.”

But the process isn’t smooth for everyone.

“I filed a cancellation request,” said Samantha Meyer, a sophomore majoring in health promotion and disease prevention studies who wants to move into her sorority house this spring. “They told me that it would be highly unlikely that they would find someone to take over my contract this semester because there hasn’t been a high demand for any USC housing.”

The cancellation requests that USC Housing approved will now be assigned to freshmen coming to USC in the spring, who are first of the spring admits to receive a housing assignment, Cheung said.

“If there is space left after all spring freshmen are assigned, then spring transfers are offered housing assignments,” he said.