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A question about college housing
Ethan Smith
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
How many of you guys (I assume that most of us are in college or have graduated) had too many people in your college for the housing to handle?
I go to SUNY Purchase, which is an arts school a bit north of New York. And Purchase has a lot of good reputations--we have a pretty good political science wing for a small SUNY, we have an amazing art school (derf), and we have a very good dance program.
We also have a reputation for expelling and suspending people on the smallest problems. This is mostly because we have far too many students in the college. Our freshmen are roughly 40-50% of the population of the school, we have so many people that we had to reserve nearby hotels to put students in. This is just a personal story, but I'm starting to worry with the larger and larger number of people going into colleges, combined with the fact that we aren't at all funding education at the state level (yet again, don't know outside, but the SUNY system is getting cut and tuitions are getting increased), that the state colleges won't have the housing for more students.
This is also a very good program that could and should be in the stimulus bill--increasing housing would make things much easier on colleges that are recieving higher numbers of students than ever before.
I go to SUNY Purchase, which is an arts school a bit north of New York. And Purchase has a lot of good reputations--we have a pretty good political science wing for a small SUNY, we have an amazing art school (derf), and we have a very good dance program.
We also have a reputation for expelling and suspending people on the smallest problems. This is mostly because we have far too many students in the college. Our freshmen are roughly 40-50% of the population of the school, we have so many people that we had to reserve nearby hotels to put students in. This is just a personal story, but I'm starting to worry with the larger and larger number of people going into colleges, combined with the fact that we aren't at all funding education at the state level (yet again, don't know outside, but the SUNY system is getting cut and tuitions are getting increased), that the state colleges won't have the housing for more students.
This is also a very good program that could and should be in the stimulus bill--increasing housing would make things much easier on colleges that are recieving higher numbers of students than ever before.
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Its not so bad in the US as the UK, since at least you pay for school here so society doesn't quite have to pay 100% for the luxury of everyone having a degree, but it's still a cost we can ill afford which doesn't really add much to the productivity of the country.
Diminishing returns you see, the more people you send to college, the less each additional one contributes.
I think that the number of people who don't contribute to society is a small price to pay for allowing social mobility.
The hardest and first hit have been the "small liberal-arts" institutions which got wicked popular around the turn of the millennium. This is, apparently, now spreading to larger schools.
I used to, when I was a student, work directly under the Housing Coordinator at Skidmore College. In my 4.5 years attending/working there I saw increased triple-housing, a push to send more and more upperclassmen off-campus and plans being drawn up/completed for further halls and campus apartments. We even sent a number of students to hotels until space opened up.
State universities are probably in the worst shape, as their funding is getting slashed.
So, yes. This is a problem. Fortunately, most of my work in the field has proven that there are a lot of tricks and turns that can manage this sort of problem. Converting doubles to triples and aggressively outsourcing to the community of land-owners are the two most obvious aspects of this.
But yes, this is a problem.
If they were doing this to old people, there would be fucking riots.
Then again, I live in Binghamton, where property values are, like, Siberia-cheap. I'm splitting a two-bedroom apartment three ways, which means I personally pay all of $160 per month in rent (plus utilities, of course).
How do we decide who gets to be white collar?
So true. At least as far as the "residential" side of things is concerned.
No school is going to look to house less students if it can. They'll triple up first-year students before anything else.
it would be de facto based on how much money their parents have, of course.
I'm leery of your plan because traditionally and in practice vocational tracks tend to be a way to funnel minority and poor students away from high-status occupations and towards labor viewed as more suitable for them.
I mean, the average machinist is now in his 50s. It's not like we're going to need people who know how to make parts for and repair machines anytime in the near future, right?
We did have this problem back a few years ago when I lived in the dorms, but it usually alleviated itself after Christmas, when about half the freshman population dropped out. Most of the freshman dorms were really packed, but I don't ever remember the housing department having to keep people in the gym.
Hurray for lack of housing!
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And this is to say nothing about what the huge influx of students does to actual classes.
I wasn't presenting a solution, let alone the one you just attributed to me, I was presenting a problem. One which would have to be addressed if we were to attempt to focus more heavily on vocational training. Heavy tracking programs are notoriously problematic for being both prejudiced and arbitrary, so how, exactly, do we track kids into or out of vocational training? It's an entirely legitimate question.
It was almost impossible to get kicked out of a dorm, which really needed to change. The way I look at it, if you don't take showers for months on end and everybody in the dorm is sick of your BO, you should get kicked out. If you pull "pranks" where you leave decomposing animals in the common areas, you get kicked out. I know we all do our crazy shit in college, especially in the early years when you're probably living in a dorm, but if your dumbass/disgusting actions are pissing other people off I don't see what's wrong with giving you the boot.
I do agree with you, though—a lessened societal expectation that anyone who's anyone should get a degree would increase the value of the degrees that do end up being earned. I have to wonder, though, if those "Hampton theatre majors" aren't, to an extent, subsidizing my own education by paying full price for their slacker kids to attend the same school.
These things are already against the rules; it's just that, in my experience, the dorm associations don't enforce them, because I guess they're afraid of getting sued or something.
You have no idea how a real university accepts new students, do you?
I mean, it would make sense if everyone they let in was bound to attend, but generally a large portion of those who are accepted do not attend. The school must take a guess as to what ratios of students will accept and attend based on a larger pool of those who they mail out acceptances to.
The problem began when larger than normal numbers of students were attending. I mean, if they could see the future it would be much easier, no?
Where the hell are you going? I know Brandeis is tame, but god damn.
I say my college should build more buildings based around forts and castles around the world. A new freshmen quad could be based on Fort Warren, and the seniors could live in let's say Fushimi Castle This is inspired by The Castle, a campus dorm (and a smaller sub-dorm next to it) that are, at least on the exterior, a scale replica of a Scottish castle (and most likely associated barracks):
What? Perhaps I used the wrong word here. Yes, you are correct, they have to accept more students than they think will attend since large numbers of those accepted will be accepted at other schools they want to attend as well. But not only are they accepting more students, but they are also accepting more student's money. I doubt very many students pay the nonrefundable housing fee of thousands of dollars only to decide, nah, they'd rather go to this other school. Having thousands of homeless freshman who paid thousands of dollars to have a reserved place to live for a year is abhorrent. If you were to be treated like that from an apartment complex you would be fuming. Imagine if you paid a full years rent only to attempt to move in and be told they don't have an apartment for you yet and that you will have to crash on someone's couch until someone gets evicted, which they promise you will totally happen soon.
It works out okay because the university is half-surrounded by slum apartments, but still.
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They have historical data, they have high school graduation rates for the current year; they can build a statistical model that involves them accepting an appropriate amount of students, then not having to expel a shitload for doing basic stupid college-student shit and defrauding them of their money.
Putting students up in a hotel causes the school to LOSE money on housing. This is simply the way it works.
And they use them. Somewhere around 2005-2007 these rates that have worked for years and years ceased to function as they should. There was a huge increase in college-bound kids in those years and as schools became more competitive, so did the attendance rates at a tier down the latter, and so on.
Also, I highly doubt that expelling students is either on or off the books as a policy, anywhere. If it is, it needs to stop.
Dead rotting animals I'll give you. Everything else just sounds like an excuse to get rid of the people who are socially unacceptable, which is exactly what MrMister is talking about.
And in some housing markets, being kicked out of the dorms may well amount to being kicked out of school for some students.
If somebody is maintaining their enrollment in the school, and willing to pay their fees to live in the dorms, they should keep their room absent breaking any actual rules. Which dead rotting animals should qualify as, but "not showering" likely does not (and should not).
As for the girls living in their boyfriends' off-campus apartments, they pay for their room. When they come home and find their boyfriend banging that girl he swore was just a friend, they'd probably like somewhere else to go. This may well be their reason for maintaining a room, and not just "so mommy and daddy don't find out." I kept a place for almost six months after basically moving in with my then-girlfriend (now wife). Even though I'd not sleep there for weeks at a time. People do that shit.
Whether intentional or not, what you're saying basically sounds like a lot of elitist bullshit in an attempt to make the dorms into some kind of social semi-utopia, which is exactly the kind of crap most people living in dorms for financial reasons fucking hate.
As for housing, I guess we don't have that problem here. Some of our more popular dorms fill up, but we're never at capacity and in fact our school is always trying to find ways to increase retention (we require freshmen to stay in dorms largely to keep them open...otherwise we'd end up tearing most of them down). As for housing/meal plans being a cash cow, from what I'm told our housing/food service departments are basically self-supporting, and the university sees very little of that money.
With the condoms, are we talking about in their room? Because at my school, your ass doesn't get to move out until the RA signs off on your card, then you lock the door and turn in the key in their presence. If you leave without doing so, you will be billed for any damages/messes remaining. And you will not get to move back in unless you've paid that bill, and in the case of something like used condoms (which, again, is probably against an actual rule) you likely won't be allowed to at all.
So maybe my dorms just rock.
As for stinky people, I just have a problem caring. You will have to deal with stinky people in real life. Possibly even in your living environment, if you live in high-density housing rather than a freestanding single-family residence. Oh fucking well. Unless your dorm has an actual rule requiring them to shower (unlikely), and unless your RAs care enough to document it even if they do have such a rule (even less likely), these people are paying their fees like everybody else.
This is standard operating procedure. However, if a resident doesn't plan on returning to the resident hall, (like at most urban/suburban campuses) they'll just pay the fee.
I will say that in two years as an RA, I only ever had one person leave their room a mess, and he was a dick whose family had the kind of money that would let him pay the fee.
Not to hijack the thread, but are their any other RAs/RMs/Paraprofessionals hanging out on here? What's your best residence hall story?
Problems with personal hygiene shouldn't be grounds, but the room should be kept clean of oderants.
Well yeah, but his post was all "I'd never let somebody like that move back in." Which yeah, in most cases that person (in relation to the condoms) isn't moving back in. That's the point.
Really it seems like most of his complaints come down to people with poor hygiene and people who aren't active enough participants on their floor (or just don't spend enough time in their room/on their floor). Then he keeps throwing in shit that's against actual rules that any half-competent residence hall would, assuming they have enough evidence to nail it to the person (I have a feeling the dead animal guy didn't admit this to the staff), deal with accordingly.
And, concerning the stinking, I'll just say that it would have had to be experienced to be believed. I'm not talking about "Gym sweat" funky, or "too much cologne" funky, or even "been in the woods for a week and can't wait for a shower" funky. The BO of someone who has, quite literally, not bathed in several calendar pages can be overpowering, and I don't think it's an exxageration to say it was potentially dangerous to the health of other people who had to use the same facilities (drinking fountains, sinks, vending machines, etc.). One reason I moved out of the dorm was that, even though I liked a lot of things about it, I always dreaded getting someone like that as a roommate. I mean, who just doesn't feel the need to shower, ever? What is the excuse?
EDIT: And, I could really care less about how "active" a participant people are in their dorms/floors. I wasn't ever really an active dorm person, and I'm not really sure where I said anything like that. I just think people should be required to maintain a bare minimum of hygiene and a clean living environment.
Man, I spent a year in the Middle East. You don't need to talk to me about overpowering man-funk.
Man-funk that has elevated itself to the status of comic-book villain.
And I live in a dorm that consists entirely of singles, and we've got a few here as well. Yes, they are exactly that funky. But no, they don't hurt anybody, aside from tender sensibilities. And they pay their fees like everybody else. And no, it's not "potentially dangerous" to people using the same water fountains as them, that's a load of shit. You're going to have to use water fountains and vending machines after funky-ass people in the real world too, get used to it. Ever smelled a bum? Like a real bum, not that guy on the corner asking for change but who actually has an apartment somewhere. Those guys use water fountains too.
Maintaining your own personal hygiene is more than enough to mitigate any "potential danger" your dorm-mates might pose. You do wash your hands before eating, right? Even that candy bar out of the vending machine? Because that money you just handled? It's every bit as funky, germ-wise, as that dude on your floor that smells like roadkill.
But then, my dorms have enough open space that getting a new roommate is relatively simple if you wind up paired with such an individual...they'll simply wind up getting their own single room for the double rate, but with no guarantee that some poor soul won't be paired with them in the future.
EDIT: I'll agree that allowing somebody to return after leaving used condoms nailed to their bulletin board is bullshit, though, and that it might suggest that your dorm staff was a bunch of pansies.
The guy sitting in his room playing DDR, and the girls who basically live off-campus. If the former is still enrolled, and is still paying his fees, he still gets to live in his dorm. You already admitted the latter was bullshit, but I think it betrays a general attitude that you may or may not be aware of.
EDIT:
It wasn't so much the dorm staff as their bosses, I think.
My problem with the dude (or, more accurately, these sorts of people in general) wasn't that he wasn't participating in the dorm, it's that he wasn't participating in college period. I hated to see these stupid brats who go into college on daddy's dime knowing damn well they're not going to do jack shit, because I know people who grew up without that opportunity and would have actually used it if they had the chance. So, yeah, I don't have a great deal of respect for people who just go into school to blow $15000 or so of their parent's money without even pretending to make an effort to complete it, and would have little sympathy if they got kicked out to make room for people who were willing to work at it.
Because one significantly interferes with the studies of their fellow residents, while the other does not?
Just a wild-ass guess.
Seems like in my dorms 99% of the rules for residents come down to either impeding the studies of fellow residents, or threatening the safety of fellow residents (with a few, like public alcohol possession, being more of CYA issues). There's no case to be made that man-funk, regardless of the funkiness, qualifies under either.
EDIT: You have to keep in mind, though, that you're talking to a man who several times had to ride for eight hours on a shit-pumping truck escorting two gigantic sweaty Iraqis neither of whom had apparently showered in a month. Your complaints about funky dormmates make me smile.
EDIT: Seriously, it was a collection of smells that haunts me to this day. I think these smells alone might be enough to cause PTSD.
True, but this applies to the space they're taking up in classes, not just dorms. The fact that they're enrolled in the university at all is the issue...every student that maintains an enrollment in the university, follows the dorm rules, and pays the fees should get to live in the dorms. Period.
EDIT: And I think any dorm rules that aren't rooted in either preventing disruption of studies or resident safety should fuck right off. Just to be clear.
The big problem now is that they don't feel any need to discourage this behavior, because they make good money off of it. So they accept more freshman than they can handle, suck a bunch of money out of them, knowing that they'll drop out after their second semester or so, when most of the mandatory fees (mandatory dorm, meal tickets, parking spaces, etc.) have expired.