The state’s flagship university is coming under political pressure to build more dorms as the school year starts.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney (D-New Haven) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) sent an open letter to University of Connecticut President Radenka Maric asking the school to find more student housing so it can grow its student population.

“Our state currently has almost 100,000 open jobs – a significant portion of which require higher levels of education. Students that choose to go to another state for school because they did not get into UConn’s main campus have a high likelihood of not returning to our state,” the two top legislators said. “While Connecticut lacks the natural resources of many other states, we have always produced a superior workforce. That can only continue if more of our college graduates stay in Connecticut, and UConn is essential to achieving that.”

The letter claims that the UConn system could add another 40,000 students “while not diminishing the academic quality of the students or diminishing the distinction of the education,” implying that the figure came from UConn officials during a recent meeting.

In a statement to the Connecticut Mirror, which first reported Loony’s and Duff’s letter, a UConn spokesperson said the school is committed to “doing all it can to enroll, house and graduate ever-increasing numbers of exceptional students from across the state, nation, and world who are the workforce of the future and play a major role in driving Connecticut’s economy.”

The school is in the process of adding dorms in downtown Stamford and Hartford, and recently opened a large residence hall at its main campus in Storrs. However, the state’s higher education budget will need to find ways to plug a multi-hundred-billion-dollar hole next year once leftover pandemic relief funding dries up, leaving it unclear how UConn might be able to act on Loony’s and Duff’s urgings. Some colleges and universities turn to private student housing operators to develop and lease out new housing to students or to the institution.