# Give colleges eminent domain **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954 "2016-06-21T13:07:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/21 "2016-06-21T17:18:54Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Many colleges are having housing shortages and are forced to convert common areas into living space for students, or have them live in hotels. We should give them the right of eminent domain, to make it easier for them to take over existing buildings. If a college is taking housing deposits, they should do whatever it takes to get proper rooms for students. Taking a deposit for a dorm or apartment, then making the student live in a student lounge is a major bait and switch. There are usually many privately owned apartment buildings near campuses, and I think colleges should be able to take them over if necessary. I think that’s a bad idea. If they need more room let them find it the same way any business does. My college ran out of room. First they rented out the top 15 floors or so of the local YMCA. The next year they had bought an old Holiday Inn. I lived in both places, and both were nicer than the dorms. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/22 "2016-06-21T17:26:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Whoa, whoa, hold on. What logic is this? _“They promised it, and they can’t deliver it, so they ought to be able to seize other people’s stuff in order to deliver on their promises?”_ > > Imagine if we weren’t talking colleges, but rival apartment complexes. I once read a book about the Soviet Gulag, and apparently this was common in Russian _Vory_ circles. They would gamble with other people’s property, and if they lost the bet they were required to steal that property to make good on their bet. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/23 "2016-06-21T17:44:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Whoa, whoa, hold on. What logic is this? _“They promised it, and they can’t deliver it, so they ought to be able to seize other people’s stuff in order to deliver on their promises?”_ > > Imagine if we weren’t talking colleges, but rival apartment complexes. > \* > What if someone said, “If Commercial Apartment Complex A is taking housing deposits, they should do whatever it takes to get proper rooms for tenants. Taking a deposit for a dorm or apartment, then making the tenant live in a lounge is a major bait and switch. Commercial Apartment Complex B has some vacant buildings that haven’t been rented out yet, and I think Commercial Apartment Complex A should be allowed to seize them.”\* In modern America society, there’s an underlying assumption that higher education is supposed to be much more privileged and important than almost anything else. That assumption is probably what’s driving the bad assumption in **boffking’s** OP. He doesn’t think that every institution which makes a promise should be able to seize land and buildings in order to keep that promises. Rather, he’s absorbed (perhaps unconsciously) the belief that universities are just so awesome that the rest of society should give them whatever they ask for. The same fallacy shows up elsewhere. Student loans, for example. In most cases, people who want a loan need to have collateral, must have a credit check run, there’s a limit on how much money will be loaned, etc… With federal student loans, on the other hand, the federal government will loan up to whatever tuition the university is asking for, doesn’t ask for collateral, doesn’t care whether the student is likely to repay or not. What’s up with that? Why on earth do we gives universities and students these privileges that would obviously look insane if we took the same approach to cars or houses? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/24 "2016-06-21T17:57:21Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > We should give them the right of eminent domain, to make it easier for them to take over existing buildings. This from the guy who thinks colleges can make significant cost reductions by [stopping subsidies for movie tickets getting rid of scavenger hunts](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=748517). I think it’s safe to say his views on colleges are inconsistent and all over the map. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/25 "2016-06-21T17:58:04Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > The housing rules, options, and costs are easily ascertainable before applying to a college, and before enrolling. I agree many rules suck, students are not forced to go to any particular school. I teach at a state university, and i don’t think that any state university should dictate where its students live. It doesn’t matter if the information is available beforehand; the main purpose of a state university is education, and it shouldn’t force students to pay above-market rents for housing. Private colleges can do what they want, but state institutions shouldn’t be able to require on-campus accommodation, especially in cases (quite common) where such accommodation is offered at above-market rates. At my university, students are supposed to live on campus for their freshman year, although exemptions are available for local students, and for students who fit certain criteria (married; kids; older than 21; etc.). For those who live on campus, the rates are expensive even considering that Southern California is a pretty expensive part of the country. The cheapest option available is to share a bedroom in a four-bedroom apartment. That is, four bedrooms with four small bathrooms, and a living room and kitchen. So you have 8 students in an apartment. Here’s the layout: ```auto http://www.thequadsanmarcos.com/san-marcos/the-quad/floorplans/jimson-double-185009/is-premium-view/lease-start-window-id/300/lease_term[id]/3010/lease_start_window[id]/300/space_configuration_id/3/ ``` I had to put it in code, because the presence of square brackets in the URL screws up the regular vB coding. For this, the cheapest option is $880 per month per student. So total rent for that apartment is at least $7040 per month. You can get a two-story two-bedroom townhouse within five minutes of the university for $1600-2000. I found a 1-bedroom apartment for $1000, and a three-bedroom house for $2500. If you’re willing to drive 15 or 20 minutes to campus, options get even better in terms of cost per bedroom. Obviously, there are advantages to student housing. First, it’s on campus or right next door, meaning an easy walk to class. Second, rents are all inclusive (electricity, internet, etc.), so there are no extra costs. Third, you’re not committed to a full-year lease, so there’s no worries about what you do during the summer and winter breaks if you don’t want to stay in town. Fourth, if you like this sort of thing, there’s also the community of your fellow students, and you get a pool and a bunch of common areas to hang out. If students want all of this, that’s great, but i don’t think that they should be forced into buying it if they would prefer to live off campus. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/26 "2016-06-21T18:07:30Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > … Third, you’re not committed to a full-year lease, so there’s no worries about what you do during the summer and winter breaks if you don’t want to stay in town. … Which reminds me, one of these kids told me was forced out of the dorm over Christmas break. He could pay an extra $800 to stay, _even though he had the room through the following semester and was allowed to leave his stuff in it._ ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/27 "2016-06-21T18:30:01Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I teach at a state university, and i don’t think that any state university should dictate where its students live. It doesn’t matter if the information is available beforehand; the main purpose of a state university is education, and it shouldn’t force students to pay above-market rents for housing. Private colleges can do what they want, but state institutions shouldn’t be able to require on-campus accommodation, especially in cases (quite common) where such accommodation is offered at above-market rates. > > At my university, students are supposed to live on campus for their freshman year, although exemptions are available for local students, and for students who fit certain criteria (married; kids; older than 21; etc.). For those who live on campus, the rates are expensive even considering that Southern California is a pretty expensive part of the country. > > The cheapest option available is to share a bedroom in a four-bedroom apartment. That is, four bedrooms with four small bathrooms, and a living room and kitchen. So you have 8 students in an apartment. Here’s the layout: > > ```auto > > http://www.thequadsanmarcos.com/san-marcos/the-quad/floorplans/jimson-double-185009/is-premium-view/lease-start-window-id/300/lease_term[id]/3010/lease_start_window[id]/300/space_configuration_id/3/ > > ``` > > I had to put it in code, because the presence of square brackets in the URL screws up the regular vB coding. > > For this, the cheapest option is $880 per month per student. So total rent for that apartment is at least $7040 per month. You can get a two-story two-bedroom townhouse within five minutes of the university for $1600-2000. I found a 1-bedroom apartment for $1000, and a three-bedroom house for $2500. If you’re willing to drive 15 or 20 minutes to campus, options get even better in terms of cost per bedroom. > > Obviously, there are advantages to student housing. First, it’s on campus or right next door, meaning an easy walk to class. Second, rents are all inclusive (electricity, internet, etc.), so there are no extra costs. Third, you’re not committed to a full-year lease, so there’s no worries about what you do during the summer and winter breaks if you don’t want to stay in town. Fourth, if you like this sort of thing, there’s also the community of your fellow students, and you get a pool and a bunch of common areas to hang out. > > If students want all of this, that’s great, but i don’t think that they should be forced into buying it if they would prefer to live off campus. For the most part, I agree, but one reasonable counterargument is that students who live off campus often end up making sub-optimal choices that impact their academic performance or safety. My university is moving toward a requiring-freshmen-to-live-on-campus model specifically because of a cluster of issues of this sort (mostly involving international students failing to recognize that their off-campus housing is in a neighborhood with a higher crime / violence potential than they’re used to at home, but also including students from other parts of the state who crash and burn because they somehow don’t realize that a three-hour commute that causes them to arrive midway through their first class of the day is not a good idea). I tend to be on the “you can only do so much to save students from themselves” side of this debate, but it’s understandable that our administration, which is desperate to retain students, sees it otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/28 "2016-06-21T18:32:24Z")
Why are we overlooking the simplest solution? Don’t let colleges enroll more people than they can reasonably manage. If they only have housing for X number of students, then they should only be allowed to have a student body of X + independently housed students ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/29 "2016-06-21T18:37:31Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Caltech, of course, will slaughter the lot of them with bioengineered toxins and neutron-enhanced microfusion devices. “Destroy, erase, improve.” > > Stranger CalTech vs MIT… I think the smart money’s on CalTech. They’ve got the lunatics at JPL to draw on. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/30 "2016-06-21T18:47:39Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why are we overlooking the simplest solution? Don’t let colleges enroll more people than they can reasonably manage. If they only have housing for X number of students, then they should only be allowed to have a student body of X + independently housed students The simplest solution is to cut back on the student loan program and force colleges to compete in a sort-of-free market for students. It is my belief that colleges will - somehow, God willing! - be able to cut back on expenses to the point where colleges become more affordable. mhendo, where do you teach that rentals of $2000 can be the norm? I’m outside of Charleston, SC and I could get a two-bedroom apartment for $1000 or less within 3 miles of Charleston Southern University (I just looked) and further away I could rent my own house - 4 bed, 2.5 bath and 2500 sq ft for about $1600/month. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/31 "2016-06-21T18:51:14Z")
Why buy what you can steal! ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/32 "2016-06-21T19:11:33Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why are we overlooking the simplest solution? Don’t let colleges enroll more people than they can reasonably manage. If they only have housing for X number of students, then they should only be allowed to have a student body of X + independently housed students This leads to another issue with the university system in America. Administrators have a financial motivation to enroll as many students as they possibly can. More students means more money means higher salaries and benefits for administrators and more prestige-boosting projects. [Sixty percent](http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/gap.shtml) of incoming freshman require remedial courses before they can even begin taking college-level courses. Many of those end up among [the large number](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V9AvgZfux4gJ:www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/11/19/u_s_college_dropouts_rates_explained_in_4_charts.html+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) of students who drop out, leaving with nothing to show for it but debt. So the intelligent thing to do would be to simply admit fewer students, but the system gives administrators no reason to prefer doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/33 "2016-06-21T19:11:48Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Why are we overlooking the simplest solution? Don’t let colleges enroll more people than they can reasonably manage. If they only have housing for X number of students, then they should only be allowed to have a student body of X + independently housed students Not that boffking is ever going to return to this thread, but the housing of students in dorm lounges, putting three students in a room meant for two, or even putting four students in a room meant for three (which is what happened to me freshman year) are almost always temporary measures. There are usually some students who don’t actually start school in the fall even though they accepted the offer of admission or even though they sent in a deposit. So after a week or two, the school will have a better idea of what the actual number of students are on campus and can move people back to normal rooms. (In my case, two of the guys sharing my triple moved down the hall to an empty double. So my freshman year roommate and I shared a triple. In other cases, people literally manage to get kicked out of school very early in their first semester, which frees up more rooms.) ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/34 "2016-06-21T19:15:02Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > The simplest solution is to cut back on the student loan program and force colleges to compete in a sort-of-free market for students. It is my belief that colleges will - somehow, God willing! - be able to cut back on expenses to the point where colleges become more affordable. > > mhendo, where do you teach that rentals of $2000 can be the norm? I’m outside of Charleston, SC and I could get a two-bedroom apartment for $1000 or less within 3 miles of Charleston Southern University (I just looked) and further away I could rent my own house - 4 bed, 2.5 bath and 2500 sq ft for about $1600/month. He mentions he’s in Southern California, so those rates are normal. If he were in the Bay Area I would be unsurprised to see $3500/month apartments. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/35 "2016-06-21T19:15:13Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > For the most part, I agree, but one reasonable counterargument is that students who live off campus often end up making sub-optimal choices that impact their academic performance or safety. My university is moving toward a requiring-freshmen-to-live-on-campus model specifically because of a cluster of issues of this sort (mostly involving international students failing to recognize that their off-campus housing is in a neighborhood with a higher crime / violence potential than they’re used to at home, but also including students from other parts of the state who crash and burn because they somehow don’t realize that a three-hour commute that causes them to arrive midway through their first class of the day is not a good idea). I tend to be on the “you can only do so much to save students from themselves” side of this debate, but it’s understandable that our administration, which is desperate to retain students, sees it otherwise. Yeah, this is an important issue. Like many public universities, we too have a big issue with retention and graduation rates, and there are indeed studies suggesting that students who live on campus, especially in their freshman year, often make a smoother transition to the rigors of college work than students who live off campus. If compulsory student housing helps more students pass their classes and graduate on time, it might be a good investment of their money even if they don’t appreciate or recognize it at the time. Still, i’m a little uncomfortable with the state telling adults where they have to live, and forcing them to pay above-market rates in to the bargain. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > mhendo, where do you teach that rentals of $2000 can be the norm? I’m outside of Charleston, SC and I could get a two-bedroom apartment for $1000 or less within 3 miles of Charleston Southern University (I just looked) and further away I could rent my own house - 4 bed, 2.5 bath and 2500 sq ft for about $1600/month. As i said, i’m in Southern California. The rents i described are fairly typical for the area. As i said, there are places where you can pay less, sometimes considerably less, especially if you’re willing to move further out, but if you want to be near the university, it’s going to cost. Depending on style, amenities, condition, and exact location, if you dropped your 2500-square-foot, 4-bedroom house into north San Diego county, the monthly rent would start at around $2600-2800 per month, and could get up as high as $5000 or $6000. Here are a few of the cheapest houses of similar size i found within a half-hour drive of the campus: [4 bed, 2.5 bath, 2-car garage, 2300 square feet - $2,800](http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/apa/5646338037.html) [4 bed, 3 bath, 3-car garage, 2500 square feet - $2,950](http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/apa/5646338037.html) [4 bed, 2.5 bath, 3-car garage, 2500 square feet - $3,000](http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/apa/5635764354.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/36 "2016-06-21T19:17:42Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Around here, government must compensate the land owner the fair market value of the property. BPA can certainly take my property against my will, but they will have to pay me what the property is worth. No, they have to pay you what they can convince a court or arbitrator the property is worth. Not necessarily the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/37 "2016-06-21T19:19:04Z")
A couple of months ago, I went on the tour at Stanford. The tour guide mentioned that something like 96% of the students live on campus. Not surprising given how insane housing prices are in the Palo Alto area. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/38 "2016-06-21T19:36:34Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > A couple of months ago, I went on the tour at Stanford. The tour guide mentioned that something like 96% of the students live on campus. Not surprising given how insane housing prices are in the Palo Alto area. Yeah, the cost of on-campus housing at Stanford is actually below the market rate for the area. The same is true for other expensive private schools in expensive real estate markets. Students at universities like Harvard, Columbia, and NYU all benefit from housing rates that are below market value. It helps that, in many cases, these universities have had large real estate holding dating back to before the explosion in housing prices. Also, those schools have massive amounts of money. Although expensive, wealthy private universities don’t always give their students bargain housing. When i was a grad student at Johns Hopkins ten years ago, it seemed to me that the undergrads living in campus housing didn’t get such a good deal. Baltimore was a cheap city for renting. My wife and i rented a lovely two-story, 2.5 bedroom row house with hardwood floors, five minutes walk from campus, for under $1,200 a month. On the Hopkins campus, undergrads were paying about $600-800 per month (each) to share a two-bed dorm room. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/39 "2016-06-21T20:10:05Z")
Upon review, while there might be a debate on this subject, this ain’t it. Boffking, if you continue to not return to debate threads you start I will start shutting them down or limiting the number you’re allowed to start. Off to IMHO with this one. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954/40 "2016-06-21T20:12:12Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > If they only have housing for X number of students, then they should only be allowed to have a student body of X + independently housed students Allowed? Allowed by whom? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-colleges-eminent-domain/757954.md?page=3)