On-Campus Housing Ain’t So Bad

Posted on June 27, 2008
Filed Under News, The Daily Prereq | By Mike Dang

Living on campus after freshman year used to mean major drawbacks like finding on-campus parking and dealing with campus police. Now more upperclassmen are finding themselves applying to live on campus to save some cash, due to what Inside Higher Ed calls a “a possible response to the recent downturn in the U.S. economy.” Ridiculous gas prices for commuters, unsubsidized utility bills, and rising food and rent costs have all made dorms look downright appealing by comparison. Res-life administrators at Emory University said wait-lists for upperclass housing have gotten much longer, and Georgia Southern University plans to eliminate wait-lists with a $44 million dormitory that will accommodate 1,001 students when it’s completed in the summer of 2009.

Record freshman enrollments levels have even caused colleges such as the University of Missouri-Columbia to keep open a dormitory that it had planned to close and contract with off-campus apartment complexes to provide space for 700 students. At Boston College, more than 95 percent of students request on-campus housing, but the school has only enough beds to accommodate 81 percent of them. As a result, BC is planning on becoming the first major college in the city to provide university housing for all of its undergraduates and has agreed to pay $67 million for a 16-story apartment building to house more students. More students are bound to beg for on-campus housing once they discover another perk of having their digs at school: the between-class nap.

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