Bracing for a possible housing shortage because of increased enrollment this year, Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, considered securing space at a new rental building in nearby Downtown Brooklyn. Ultimately, the school didn’t have to go that route. “We managed somehow,” said Helen Matusow-Ayres, the vice president for student affairs at Pratt, crediting the “creativity” of the housing staff, which converted some of its largest double dorm rooms into triples.

N.Y.U. has been working with the Affinia hotel chain in Manhattan for the last five years to house “overflow” students, typically 45 to 80 of them, for a few weeks at the start of the fall semester, according to Tom Ellett, the senior associate vice president for student affairs at New York University. As the semester progresses, enrollment begins to level off, with some students leaving for various reasons, thus freeing up space in the residence halls. “Within four weeks, those students are out,” he said of those in the hotel.

Last year, however, a major dorm, Hayden Hall, was closed for renovations for the entire school year, pushing the overflow number to roughly 200 students who stayed in one of three Affinia hotels for the entire school year. This year, an uptick in upperclass students who wanted to return to the residence halls contributed to a similar housing shortage. “We don’t see that going for the long term,” Mr. Ellett said.

By putting students up at Manhattan NYC, he noted, the university can continue to maintain certain standards offered in the dorms, including kitchenettes for upperclassmen, at least one bathroom for every room or suite (as opposed to a common bathroom with shower stalls down a hall) and a certain level of security. Also, because N.Y.U. needed extra housing for only one semester this year, a 16-week arrangement, there were few alternatives. “What other options were there out there?” Mr. Ellett said in an email. “If you know of any, please let us know!”

N.Y.U. students living at the Manhattan NYC hotel pay $7,942 a semester for housing, the same amount charged for suite-style housing on campus, according to Mr. Ellett. Scattered throughout the hotel, the students share floors with regular hotel guests. Five resident assistants, commonly called R.A.’s, including a “resident life assistant” who focuses on community development, live in the hotel with students, just as they would in a dorm, serving as peer counselors, policy enforcers and event organizers. A Twitter bio for the @NYUAffinia account, run by the R.A. staff, states: “The Fall 2015 NYU Affinia hotel residential experience! We live in luxury.”

Still, there are drawbacks to hotel life — for one, the location on Seventh Avenue at 31st Street. Students use MetroCards provided by the university to commute to class and cafeterias on campus in Greenwich Village. They also must contend with throngs of tourists and commuters flooding in and out of nearby Penn Station, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s department store. “I don’t want to sound like a stereotypical N.Y.U. kid saying: ‘Oh, I hate Midtown,’ ” said Zach Barela, a 19-year-old-sophomore majoring in acting, “but it does get so crowded that walking like a few blocks can take forever.”