Off-campus housing curtailment causes anxiety as room draw nears
I will be a senior next year: a big, bad, nothing-can-touch-me, have-my-entire-life-ahead-of-me, seeking-new-opportunities senior. Senior year is a year to practice “adulting” as much as one can before one heads out in the world.
While I am trying to learn the responsibilities of being an adult and living on my own, I will most likely be living in a dorm next year. At 22 years old, I will be living in a confined space with a peer telling me what I can and cannot do in my own residence.
When students commit to Allegheny, we are all required to sign a housing agreement. Basically, this agreement says that we, as Allegheny students, will abide by all the rules that the administration has put in place pertaining to living arrangements on campus, including the fact that we are required to live on campus for at least three years. After that requirement is met, or if you fall into one of the categories that exempts you, we are allowed to live off campus.
At least, that is the way it used to be.
According to the Residence Life website, for the class of 2015 and beyond, these rules will no longer apply. The class of 2015 and beyond are now required to live on campus for all four years of their college career.
The most irritating part of this whole scenario is that the senior class is being punished for the school’s inability to recruit. The number of seniors who can or cannot live off campus their final year hinges on the number of incoming freshman who commit to Allegheny.
The issue at hand has been a long time coming as the number of incoming freshman has shrunk over the years. I watched last year as upcoming seniors grew irked over the fact that they were told that fewer students were allowed to live off campus, and I watched their relief when the school had no choice but to approve students to live off campus because there was not enough space on campus to house all enrolled students.
I know seniors this year living in Caflisch Hall, which is traditionally an underclassman dorm. Room draw is all a game of luck. If one of your friends gets a high enough number and you are lucky enough to make the cut to live with them, then you are pulled into their room, regardless of your draw number, which is nice for underclassmen and for those who do not get a good number. But, when juniors and seniors pull up sophomores to live in North Village I with them, it leaves seniors with low numbers in Caflisch and other underclassmen dorms.
If room draw is going to be determined like it is now, and the school seriously expects to house all enrolled students in on-campus housing, a change needs to be made.
As seniors, we have worked our way up. We all had to live in less-than-desirable living arrangements. We all had to work our butts off in order to make it to senior year with a decent GPA and an applicable comp topic in mind. I think that it is only fair that everyone does their time before they can live the life of relative luxury.
I understand that the goal of the college, itself a private institution, is to make a profit. But need I remind you that as full time students we pay $41,970 in just tuition per year. Now, honestly, I have no idea where that tuition goes, but I think they could spare a few dollars so that seniors can live off campus as they so chose.
Could Allegheny, by trying to prevent students from living off campus, be trying to control college party culture? If students live in their own housing there is no way for the college to monitor what they do in their own homes, including throwing parties. In my opinion, where there are college students there is a party culture. No matter where we are forced to live, parties will still be a part of our weekend, RA or not.
The entire situation is creating a loop. As fewer students commit to Allegheny and fewer seniors are able to live off campus, it ends up driving away potential students. Coming to a school where you are forced to live on campus for four years definitely was not on my list of priorities when looking at colleges and I know other students would agree.
As a senior class, all we ask is that you keep the promise you made us when we signed a contract as freshman and let us live where we please for our final year as Allegheny students even if that means losing some control and some money in the process.
Kyle T-I • Feb 15, 2016 at 9:27 pm
The thing is, Allegheny College students admitted after the Class of 2014 were recruited with a four year residency requirement. This was enacted largely because 80-90% of the schools Allegheny directly competes with for students and accolades include four year residency requirements. On campus housing is explicitly implied by the term “4 year residential college,” which is listed on the Allegheny College website and in the majority of college search publications in which Allegheny is listed, including Princeton Review.
The grandfathering in of off campus housing was a direct result of an intentionally larger than average bicentennial class (which also distorts the apparent matriculation deficiency). Spots weren’t available, so seniors were granted exemption. Now that spots are available, exemption is no longer necessary.
In addition, students are not guaranteed to live any specific location for any specific number of years anywhere in the admissions or student life literature. The only age restricted dorm is freshman only Baldwin, meaning all others are fair game to fulfill the residency requirement. For those students looking for the off campus feel, the college has spent the last few years purchasing and renovating numerous houses in the neighborhood.
The idea that senior students deserve to be treated with exception is a sophomoric ideal ritually perpetuated in secondary education institutions that should remain there for the same reason: it’s sophomoric and secondary to learning and growth. Cohabitation of upperclassmen with underclassmen is intentional, and is a process of building the community by providing built-in mentorship and creative interaction that should be embraced.
The college is not looking for reasons to screw the student body. The tuition students pay goes towards paying salaries for highest quality educators to teach to the highest extent of their fields and for administrators who support the student body and work 14-20 hour days, largely on overtime exempt salaries. Tuition pays to provide state of the art academic facilities that provide students daily opportunities to interact directly with cutting edge technology and methodology, interaction that pays dividends in professional and academic pursuits. Tuition pays for the outreach staff that connects the student body with internships and career advising, study abroad opportunities and postgraduate resources. Excess money after all of those costs and others goes towards the promotion of the school to prospective students and alumni, alike, with the intent of providing the robust student body makeup, opportunities on and off campus, and growing the future potential of students by strengthening the ability of the college to invest in itself. Excess money provides for upkeep of the campus grounds and facilities that students take advantage of daily, as well as renovations of current and future housing. Excess money also pays to replace and repair the thousands of dollars in damages caused by experiential learning of the young adult population on a semesterly basis. Tuition is not just a number that the school comes up with arbitrarily. It is an approximation, and likely an underapproximation, of the value students receive within the year.
College is not free at this moment. It is an investment in the future. Students know that coming in. Buying in to the experience of a living and learning community bound by academic integrity and human respect is an expectation of that investment. It is the responsibility of every student to evaluate how much a degree from Allegheny College means to them and balance that evaluation with the opportunity cost of attending. If opportunity cost of a residency requirement exceeds the valuation of the degree, then a student can choose to invest in a different institution.
As for the social aspect, the student body will find a way to push the limits on restrictions in place for safety and liability, regardless of on or off campus status. Short of a dry campus initiative, that is unlikely to change.
The bottom line is that students are paying for a piece of paper with the weight of a premier private not-for-profit institution behind it. The campus life aspect adds incredible value to the experience of earning that piece of paper, but should not distract from the ultimate goal of actually earning it.
Instead of railing endlessly against an administrative system thanks to misunderstanding the intent of higher education, time would be better spent making alumni connections, serving the community, applying for jobs, internships, fellowships and graduate programs, and otherwise more fully taking advantage of the resources available to the student body. Allegheny College exists as a vehicle to jump start the future, a future that will undoubtedly include numerous years and opportunities to choose independent accommodations. There is only one initial baccalaureate degree, and there are far more challenging and rewarding problems to solve than having to be accountable to peers and oneself for eight “extra” months. Focus forward.