Brown has a requirement that undergraduates spend at least six semesters living on campus. There are exceptions for Resumed Undergraduate Education students, married students, students with special needs and students who live close enough to campus to commute. There are also several dozen juniors who are granted permission to live off campus so that the University has enough space to house all the sophomores and first-years, and any senior who applies for off-campus permission is granted it. But the six-semester requirement is a fundamental disservice to students at Brown. It limits an individual’s ability to choose his or her own housing, gives the University an economic situation where it doesn’t need to offer competitive housing and creates situations where on-campus dorms are overfilled.
Let me state these points one by one. The first one is simple: If I have to live on campus for six semesters, then I don’t really have the freedom to choose where I want to live. I don’t want to be too dramatic, but I think most of us believe Brown is all about intellectual freedom and diversity of opinions and options. Is it not hypocritical that the University then denies us choice in housing?
Next, the six-semester requirement essentially gives the University a monopoly on student housing for first-years, sophomores and juniors. If it can force students to live on campus, then it doesn’t need to compete with the rest of the market. It creates a captive market. The University can set prices on housing that are higher than the market value of a space.
Let’s look at the numbers. The standard room rate is about $7,000 for the year. We go to school from September through May. Our dorms, however, are closed for much of December and January. So we’ll call that eight months. You’re paying about $900 a month for what could be half a double, or about 80 square feet. If you live in a suite — that is to say, you have a sink, a common space, a private bath or kitchen appliances — you are charged an additional $100 per month. You could be paying over $1,000 a month for on-campus housing.
The suite fee also comes with the baggage of de facto segregation, as discussed in a recent Herald editorial. If you haven’t looked at rental listings on College Hill, I invite you to — see if you think $1,000 a month is fair market price. A quick look at summer sublet prices reveals $500 a month for rooms on Power Street, $500 a month for the corner of Governor and Freemont streets and $650 a month for Benevolent Street.
Finally, the issue that brought this all to my attention: overflow. The University has to project the number of students it will need to house every year. These numbers can be difficult to model accurately for several reasons. When acceptance letters are sent out to high school seniors, the Office of Residential Life doesn’t know exactly how many will matriculate at Brown. It doesn’t know exactly how many current students will study abroad or how many students will be no-shows. But when the University fails to get these numbers just right, there is overflow. You’ve probably seen it. Overflow is the students that were living in your dorm kitchens and lounges at the beginning of the semester — maybe some of them still do. I was in overflow last year. I lived in a lounge with three friends, and we paid about $3,600 a month for that single room.
This year, I returned from winter break to find that three of the four kitchens in my building were occupied by overflow. In January, The Herald wrote an article on students in temporary housing. The article quoted Richard Hilton, associate director of residential life, who said most students who are placed in temporary rooms with kitchens enjoy the extra amenities. I probably would, too, but what about all the students who no longer have access to a kitchen because someone is living in theirs? This includes students who might be off meal plan and students who might have dietary restrictions. The temporary status of this housing is also questionable. Though ResLife does its best to move the overflow students into permanent housing, including offering professional moving services free of charge, rooms become available only when other students leave or do not return to school. ResLife can only move overflow students into rooms vacated by others.
If the University were to significantly expand off-campus permission for juniors, there would be empty beds and lost revenue. The main reason that the University maintains the six-semester requirement is that it wants the money from having all its beds filled. Some administrators have also asserted that the sense of community created by forcing students to stay on campus is valuable.
I agree that first-years and maybe even sophomores see value in living on campus. By the time junior year rolls around, however, students should be afforded the opportunity to live where they want. There are also questions about how increasing the number of students living off campus would affect the community. But those who ask that question forget that, over the next few years, there will be increases in enrollment without increases in on-campus housing, leading to more students living off campus anyway.
I propose that the University reduce the six-semester requirement to a four-semester requirement and allow any junior or senior to live off campus. The University should create competitive housing that draws students to stay on campus, not charge a premium for sub-par housing.
Walker Mills ’15 is involved with both the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Residential Council. He would be happy for any feedback and can be reached at walker_mills@brown.edu.
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