To those who say on-campus housing is expensive: It is not, it is usually less expensive than off-campus housing, and you usually get all the amenities you will have to pay extra outside (utilities included, fast access internet, basic TV cable). The only exception is if the student knows other people before enrolling, and then getting an apartment/ a house and splitting the bills.
If you’re given additional financial help, I hope!
No way did I want to live on campus.
Heck, at Syracuse you have to live on campus as a sophomore unless you can prove financial need to do otherwise.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable, but up to a certain age. I don’t think an 18-year-old fresh out of high school would appreciate having to live with, say, a 26-year-old (or vice versa).
I’m in general against forcing students to live on campus, for many reasons (most of 'em mentioned in the above posts). I can see situations where it would be a good idea to live on campus: if, for instance, you’re straight out of High School and don’t come from the area. Those students, unless they are very used to moving and already know how to hit the ground running in new siutations, will need the extra support and structure, so that they can learn those essential skills.
Elsewise, however? Give the students as much information about the pros and cons about living on and off campus, then let them decide. The vast majority of them are adults or are in the final transistions of becoming adults, so treat them like such. If they make a mistake, that’s part of the process of life. Some people thrive living on campus, others would wilt. (I personally would wilt: I would not be able to stand the standard dorm arrangements. I like my privacy. Also, while I like learning, I need to get away from school! I’d go batty if I was looking at my campus every day of the week.)
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Disclaimer: in Australia, only a very tiny percentage of uni students live on campus. Most of students living in university accomodation are international students, plus a few students from the country.
Having said that, I think it’s a stupid idea. Living in student accomodation is much more expensive than living at home. As for the community idea, I don’t think it’s necessary to force students to live together just to get them to know one another. I’ve never lived at uni and had no trouble meeting people and forming bonds.
I’ll toss in another “nay.” I consciously chose to live off-campus and commute to school for all four years for several reasons:
- I wanted to save my parents and myself the cost of housing. (I was already going to school on scholarship and didn’t want to incur any additional costs.)
- I wanted to have a car. Freshmen at my school simply weren’t issued parking permits, and believe me, there was naught to do within a reasonable walking distance of the school, particularly in the winter.
- I wanted to keep the afternoon job I’d held in high school, particularly since my salary was increasing (but would be reset to minimum wage if I quit and came back).
- I didn’t want the negative influences of being on campus…particularly the overabundance of sex, drinking, etc. I can reasonably see how, at that age, I would have easily caved to peer pressure from the thrill of being a college freshman. Given that, on weeknights, you’d see at least one EMT van at the freshman dorms (and three on weekends), this was probably a good call on my part.
- I really didn’t want to be separated from my family. I don’t mean this in the sense that I was clinging to apron strings, so much as that I appreciated that I didn’t want my family to become gradually less important as I grew up. We’re all important to each other, and I wanted to have at least some reasonable time with them. This became particularly apparent when I had three grandparents die over the course of my college career.
I live away from home now for graduate school, and we all hate it (within reason). My parents and sister want me around, and I want me around.
Plus, it’s not like I was alone at home. A number of my local friends were also college commuters, so we could all relate but still see each other (as opposed to seeing old friends only at Christmas and summers). It’s not like I was the only one doing it.
I liked the system at my old school: all freshmen were required to live on campus, but automatic exceptions were granted for all freshmen over 25 years old, married freshmen, freshmen with children, freshmen whose families lived in the geographic area, and freshmen coming from foster care (on the assumption that they may not have a home to go to on the breaks, and therefore needed year round housing). Any other freshman could apply for an exception.
For a freshman not falling into one of these catagories, I think living on campus is a great idea. It does help one make friends more easily, and it could ease a major life transition for an eighteen year old if they don’t have to concern themselves with getting the utilities hooked up along with every other change in their lives.
At my college, freshmen and sophomores were required to live on campus, barring those exceptions people mentioned above. You could get around it by simply saying your child was living at home while setting up an apartment for them as my freshman roommate’s mom did for her our sophomore year. My sophomore year, I got a private room in the “quiet” dorm because of my GPA, and by spring break of that year, I was married, so I was living off campus anyway.
I would recommend that freshmen stay on campus, because the experience is truly great fun, but I don’t like how schools require it. It’s simply a money thing for them.
tlw the “gold plan” included 21 meals/week PLUS a large number of “credits” to be used in certain of the food services. The excess was such that people were buying pizza for their whole floor towards the end of the year just to use up their credits. So, if the goal was reducing the freshman 15 I would think they had the opposite effect.
I will add that at my college the price of on campus housing was comparable or slightly cheaper than off-campus housing. I reiterate that my belief that all Freshman who are coming straight from high school SHOULD live on campus. And at non-urban, non-commuter schools, this is the vast majority of Freshman.
Making it a requirement seems unnecessary. But I thought that living on campus/in the dorms was suppose to be “part of the experience,” not some training wheels for life.
There are a lot of 18yo’s that are out there on their own, and Imean on there own. With a job and paying rent. Not set up in a rental house, all expenses paid.
It was just on the news this week that the UNC colleges are considering also having sophmores be required to stay on campus, given the exceptions listed above. They claim that students that live on campus adjust better and make more of their college experience.
There are pros and cons to both sides. I think that having the students stay on campus does give them the experience of living away from home and realizing what it’s like to have to make their own decisions.
I believe most (if not all) schools that have this policy have a commuter status which exempts students from housing policies.
Personally, I feel it is a good idea for all freshman to live on campus. I went to school where everyone (that was not a commuter) had to live on campus unless they won the off campus lottery. The reason was simple, there weren’t enough places to live in town for only but a few people. The town was mostly a college. Fraternity houses were considered campus housing by this rule, but not charged by the college.
To the opposite extreme, a friend of mine went to school in a big city. They only have enough campus housing that freshman were the only students that were guarenteed on campus housing.
Personally, I think students have enough to worry about their first year of college without having to deal with all the hassles of off campus housing. I don’t agree that it should be mandatory (assuming local living areas exist). However, I would strongly encourage any student to stay on campus during their first year of college.
I’ve lived on-campus for two years and off-campus for two years, with a year living abroad sprinkled in the middle for good measure.
As an across-the-board policy for all universities, I don’t think it’s a good idea. However, each individual university has a right to make this decision. University is not simply about academics, and I think it is a reasonable requirement for a university to make that all freshmen should live on-campus, with some of the few exceptions noted. It’s one year, what’s the big friggin deal? If you don’t like it, pick another school. If a university decides that the “on-campus” experience is necessary for developing students in the way it wishes, so be it.
Personally, I loved living on-campus, and I loved it when I moved away off-campus. The only off-campus housing I could afford in Evanston were all shitholes, so on-campus living was actually more comfortable and more affordable in most ways. I don’t believe it was a requirement at my university, but I think it’s well within the American philosophy of what university is to make it a requirement. At least for one year. What’s the big deal?
At the college I attended for a year, it was mandatory for all freshmen to live on campus, even for nontraditional students. Thus, there was a 40-year-old woman on my floor. I found that totally unreasonable.
I don’t agree at all with forcing freshmen to live on campus. I didn’t get along with my roommates, I’m not a particularly sociable person. I didn’t make any friends on my floor. I made friends through groups I joined, and I spent very little time in my dorm room, which led to a whole lot of conflict. My roommates didn’t feel I was “one of them,” since they spent ALL their time in the room. They got drunk every night, flicked their cigarette ashes on the floor, and in general were huge slobs, then they got mad at me when I refused to “pull my weight” in cleaning the room, when I wasn’t the one dirtying it in the first place. My personal corner of the room was kept clean. All the stress from constantly being nagged and bitched at made it kind of hard to concentrate on studying.
Eventually, they ended up booting me out, and since the housing people couldn’t find anything else for me, they ended up giving me a college-owned off-campus apartment (kitchen, my own bathroom, living room, and bedroom, at no additional cost, it was sweet), and I was much happier.
So, dorm living is definitely not right for everyone, and I’d rather not have had that “growing as a human” experience.
Dorms used to ne monitored and certain standards of behavior enforced. These standards were in many ways inconvenient, oppressive, and many were arbitrary. However, the dorms were apparently not the vomit repositories that so many have become. Now requiring freshmen to live on campus, particularly when they are hearded into freshmen dorms, it is a pure money grubbing activity on the part of the college. The Rules are still inconvenient, ( Whadda you mean she has to leave, and this is a party, the five of us are studying History! Tell the bozo next dor to turn down his music, Oh that isn’t a party but my study group is?) but the no longer enforce civilized behavior. Anyone, in the dorms that I was familiar with, if they chose to complain was made out to be a bad guy, not a team player and all around jerk.
Until colleges are prepared once again to provide an evironmen that is not antithetical to study, they should not even think about requiring any one to live on campus.
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*Originally posted by lee *
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Until colleges are prepared once again to provide an evironmen that is not antithetical to study, they should not even think about requiring any one to live on campus. **[/QUOTE
Excellent point. It was my experience that the party students usually set the tone in the dormitory unless it was special housing (quiet lifestyles, etc). Students who complained got a bad rep pretty quickly, and the Resident Assistants were often simply trying to get free room and board with the least amount of effort. Remember many of the administrative tasks in the dorms (such as the front desks) are handled by other students, so many students who have complaints are hesitant to complain. I know that many people have great dorm experiences, but colleges should also respect students who are simply not comfortable in them.
I think it seems rather silly. For me, I would never want to live on-campus. My home is twenty minutes away, and I have two jobs close to my house. Juggling two jobs and 17 units would not be possible living on campus, and my family and I certainly could not afford it.
Yet another MIT alum who thinks this is a bad idea. When I was there, your first week was spent going around to as many dorms and independent living groups as you wanted. At the end you put in your choices, then spent a couple more days deciding on the floor you wanted before you got your room assignment. This meant that most floors maintained a character - quiet, partying, etc. so you could choose a place that matched your personality. Most people I knew stayed on the same hall for their entire time at MIT. I can’t see how they’ll keep that in the new system.
Unfortunately, some parents, including those of the boy who died, seem to think frat = drinking, dorm = quiet studying. When I was there, both ILG’s and dorms ran the spectrum, with some frats better than some dorms, and one really bad frat. Of course, now kids won’t have a choice about where they go. The dorm was a great experience for me, but forcing all students to stay in one with no choice of which dorm is a lousy way of dealing with worried parents.
I’m currently attending Harvey Mudd College, which requires all freshmen to live on campus, and I think that it’s a great idea. Since this is a science and engineering school, many of the students were outcasts in high school, and if they lived off campus, they might not realize that the social scene at our college is more willing to accept them. Instead, they would just sit in their apartments watching Star Trek all day (I don’t use stereotypes very often, but it’s true). There are other advantages as well. Off campus students wouldn’t get to participate in intramural sports or other such activities. We often have study groups or tutoring sessions on evening or weekends; those would be harder to attend for off campus students. And there are classes such as Engineering 4, which is essentially students spend all semester working on a single major project in groups of four or five. Since the groups have to meet outside of class a lot, scheduling could be difficult for off-campus students.
Too address some of the complaints made above: first of all, as far as I know, we don’t have any older students as entering freshmen. Incoming students can request alcohol-free living if they want, and also single-sex living. The cost of on-campus housing is about $4500/year, and I doubt that there would be any apartments available nearby for less than $6000 (this is Southern California, after all). And there are rules against loud music at night and other distractions.
I think that living in the dorms as a traditional freshman is a good idea because it helps you feel more connected to the campus. It’s easier to participate in student groups and other activities because you’re right there. It’s easier to use facilities like libraries and computer labs because you’re right there. Even if you don’t like your roommate, you usually meet plenty of people you do like. Where else can you live where, if you’re lonely, you can just open your door and people will stop by? There are also some really nice dorms these days. A new dorm just opened at the University of Minnesota that features apartment-style rooms with private bathrooms and kitchenettes and wonderful views of the Mississippi River.
I think that universities like the increased feeling of connectedness that on-campus residents tend to have–thus, they’d like everyone to have that chance to connect. However, I like it better when the university makes on-campus living an attractive alternative rather than a strict requirement.
The dorm I lived in that was more sex-segregated (men were in one “tower” and women were in another) was much more quiet and civil (on the women’s side, at least) than the freshman-dominated dorm I lived in where the sexes were just segregated by floor. YMMV.