To Live on Campus or To Live off Campus?
Usually thinking about where a student is going to be living when applying to college is an afterthought. In my case, I had discussed with my mother and grandparents my plan of purchasing a condo, finding a roommate to lower the cost of the mortgage, and leasing it out in the summer to help cut the financial burden when I was not going to be using the condo. It was a brilliant plan! I was proud of myself for coming up with a game plan, but I was blindsided when I realized I was going to be forced into living in an overpriced shoe box called Brooks College Residence Hall. Baylor University, like many others, require freshmen to live on-campus for their first year of college, and after that students are allowed to live wherever they want, on-campus or off-campus. When diving into the academic world of scholarly articles I found out that the topic of whether students should be required to live on-campus or not is frequently debated. Many sources defend the requirements of on-campus living, but others tend to disagree completely. Students should not be required to live in on-campus housing arrangements since students will have an increased probability of developing health problems, on-campus housing is overpriced, and because on-campus living can actually cause a student’s academic success to diminish.
The argument of whether a student should be required to live on-campus is often debated between faculty members of a university and outside sources. The main proponent for requiring living on-campus is the community and sense of belonging that it creates, while other authors argue that the poor living conditions outweigh the benefits that living in a community offer.
Larry D. Long is an author that believes that students should be required to live in an on-campus living arrangement. His main claim for living on campus is academic success and his study shows that, “students who lived on campus tended to earn greater first-year GPAs than did their peers who lived off campus” (Long 69). Long also acknowledges the benefit that community has on students that live on campus, and even goes as far as to show the satisfaction of students that chose to live in a fraternity or sorority (71). Many universities take this approach to incoming freshmen as they are the ones who will reap the most benefits from living on-campus as they adjust to their new lives as college students. Another author that believes that on-campus living can be a good thing is Jenna L. Matsumura, although she believes that it needs to be improved through incorporating plant life in residence halls and community spaces (107).
The other side of the spectrum has decided that on-campus living is just not worth the fuss and poor living conditions. Barbar T. Shaikh and Jean-Pierre Deschamps believe that the poor living conditions of living on-campus outweighs any benefits that living in community creates. Since, “Students living in university residences everywhere experience frail living conditions, being away from their homes and families, due to the stress of studies and absence of readily available guidance” the amount of stress created by living on-campus really does not help a student with academic success (Shaikh and Deschamps 44). Shaikh and Deschamps also dived into the students’ health and preformed a study to see what number of students were satisfied with their health conditions in their on-campus living arrangement. It is not shocking to find out that students did not feel confident with their health due to the poor living conditions of their rooms (45). Dogan and Celik’s studies backed up that sixty-nine percent of students that complain about their quality of life say that their environment is a major impact (2124).
While both sides of the argument debate if living on-campus should be required, they both agree that on-campus living can be greatly improved. The both are in agreement that students are subjected to poor living conditions and exuberant cost that can damage students’ mental and physical health. All authors offer a different solution to the problem at hand. Shaikh and Deschamps believe that not making it a requirement would improve a student’s life, while Long believes that subtle improvements through the university’s staff can make all the difference in a student’s life and academic success.
College is not easy. Not only will the student be confronted with increased difficulty of coursework, but they will also be exposed to a dramatic change in lifestyle which only adds to the difficulty of being on one’s own. To be completely vulnerable and be honest, college is hard even though I have adjusted. I have adjusted to my coursework extremely well despite this, I have not been able to adjust to my living situation at Baylor. Growing up, I was a single child and I never had to share a bedroom or bathroom with anyone. I could easily escape to my private cocoon whenever I needed to. That is not the case here though. I live in one of the nicer residence halls offered to freshmen on the Baylor campus, yet still feel like a can of sardines every time I step into my cramped room. I am not the only one who feels this way though in Larry D. Long’s “Does It Matter Where College Students Live? Differences in Satisfaction and Outcomes as a Function of Students’ Living Arrangement and Gender,” he studies the satisfaction of students in a variety of on-campus living arrangements. Many of the students responded with the same complaints: lack of privacy, small rooms, poor study conditions, and poor living conditions (Long 69). These poor living conditions can wreak havoc on a student’s physical health.
Health should be an important factor to everyone because we only get to inhabit this world for a short amount of time; to live our best lives we should take steps to live healthier. One of the main complaints about on-campus housing is the lack of cleanliness. Cleaning is a reasonability that some students may not have had when living at home, and so they do not see the importance of cleaning. Living in filth with little or no personal hygiene can cause many health concerns. College dormitories are a breeding ground for bacteria, and an increase in bacteria can lead to a weakened immune system, which makes a student more susceptible to contracting diseases and viruses (Huo, Xinlin and Guo 2009). Luckily, there is some good news for female students: Huo, Xinlin, and Guo found that female dormitories have a lower number of bacteria than male dormitories (2009). Regardless, the bacteria found in the dormitories are still more than the average amount found in a private home, but bacteria might not be the only thing causing a fuss. What happens when a roommate becomes sick? When a student is in close proximity with other students that are sick, they are likely to get sick as well. While all of this is troubling, there is a very easy solution to this problem that would not cost the university anything at all! Students can simply go out and purchase a hotel room until their roommate or suitemate conquers the nasty virus that they contracted. It is not like students are already over paying for poor living conditions anyways. What is the extra cost of a hotel room or doctor’s bills to them? There are not any other solutions except to have a student move out of the presence of their sick roommate or suitemate. Getting sick can not only affect a student’s physical health, but it can also create tension between roommate that harms a student’s mental health. No one wants to offend their roommate, but no one wants to get sick either. Arguing with roommates over hygiene can create a tense living condition that is not conducive to mental health. These poor living conditions not only affect a student’s physical health but can also affect their mental health as well.
Mental health has become a hot topic in recent years, and it should be. A survey by the associated press in 2009 released a shocking poll that over 42% of college students admit that they experience feelings of depression and anxiety (NBC 2009). While this is a horrible statistic to even think about, it is not hard to see why students feel this way, especially incoming students. One key contributing factor is a student’s living arrangement. Many people including Long will argue that living on-campus can give a student a better sense of community and thus help them adjust to college better. While I agree that living on-campus can give the student a sense of community and create a sense of belonging that can benefit mental health, but I also see the financial burdens it can place on the student which can cause even more stress and lead to feelings of depression and anxiety. This mental health menace can easily be solved by not requiring students to live on-campus and allowing them to live wherever they feel would best meet their needs. Another solution to helping a student’s mental health would be to incorporate more plants in residence halls and around campus. Jenna L. Matsumura has done extensive research on the effects of incorporating more nature into indoor facilities. She has found that “One possible way to lessen the stress, anxiety, and depression students face may be to increase the presence of flowering houseplants in high traffic areas such as residence halls and lecture halls,” and while this is still exploring an uncharted territory it is great to see that more people are concerned with a student’s mental health (Matsumura 108). While universities are taking notice of student’s mental wellness they might not be doing enough to impress a student that is required to live on-campus. There are some things that on-campus will never be able to match, and one of them is solitude. However, health issues are not the only thing that turns students away from on-campus living; another is the exuberant cost.
One aspect on-campus housing will never be able to offer is solitude. In The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, she stresses how empowering and necessary solitude is. She is not the only one who puts a value on solitude though, even Baylor understands how necessary solitude is. In Baylor University’s Leadership 3306 course an entire section is devoted just to teach students about how valuable solitude is. When I was taking the class one requirement was to practice solitude and to come up with a report on how difficult or easy it was. At first it was difficult, and it got increasingly difficult. It is not easy to find solitude when a student is in arms reach of another student in the one place they should be able to find private moments, their room. It seems ironic that the New Student Program’s staff teaches about how important finding solitude is, but that there are not many opportunities for new students to find solitude. Solitude ties into mental health problems because when a student cannot reset and relax it really damages them and causes depression and anxiety. Brown would say that we need to “DIG deep” when we are in solitude, so that we can truly work on ourselves, and without solitude we cannot really get to the place that we need to be (56).
A double occupant with private bathroom dormitory at Brooks College Residence Hall at Baylor University cost $3,900 per semester, or $7,800 per year (Baylor). This is the type of on-campus living arrangement that I decided to live in. While there are cheaper dormitory options at Baylor University they do not offer the same living conditions that I have come to expect. Just looking at those figures it does not seem like that is too overpriced but dig a little deeper and those prices are astronomical. Those prices go up even more when considering the required full meal plan which comes in at either $2,407.89 for the weekday only, or $2,829.19 for the meal plan that includes the weekend (Baylor Campus Dish). All included the minimum amount that is due to live at Baylor University for an academic year, which is a little over six months, is $12,615.78. That is not a small amount of pocket change for most people. Add in the tuition cost for Baylor University to that, and “sticker shock” might just occur. However, it gets worse when a comparison to a typical college condo is made. A two-person apartment at URSA cost around $649 per person, or around $1,298 for both occupants. The average college semester is a little over six months, so that would bring the total per person to $3,849 per semester, which is already less than the Brooks College Residence Hall Equivalent (URSA). Fifty-one dollars may not seem like that impressive of an amount saved, but we also have to compare what the two living arrangements offer. Brooks College Residence Hall’s room offers an amazingly spacious 154 square feet of space, and that translates to paying around $25.33 per square foot, per semester (Baylor). URSA offers a small increase of living at 443 square feet, or about $8.69 per square foot, per semester. On price alone living off-campus is such a better opportunity. Long even admits that poor-living conditions combined with the higher cost of living on-campus is a major reason that students seek off-campus living arrangements (69). Not even taking into consideration all of the benefits that it offers for mental and physical health for a student.
The poor living conditions that students that live on-campus face can do more damage than just health wise, but it also damages a student’s academic success. College can require a small amount of studying to pass classes, and what happens when a student cannot study in a place that they are comfortable? Failure. Huo, Xilin, and Guo take it further when investigating how on-campus dormitories are a cesspool for breeding bacteria, and with that comes sickness which further inhibits a student’s academic success. Without a proper place to study how can a student be expected to be able to accomplish all of their academic goals? Since on-campus living arrangements do not offer a student the same level of comfort and space that off-campus living opportunities it is hard to expect a student to feel comfortable enough to study in their own dormitory. Long’s studies show that students that live on-campus manage higher GPAs, but his data does not show what type of student was studied (69). Not all academic studies require the same amount of effort, so without that key factor in the data it is hard to count his evidence as credible. Furthermore, it is hard to truly evaluate a student’s academic success by GPA alone since there are so many other factors that determine if a student is truly successful or not.
Determining the meaning of academic success is often debated from academic sources, and this is often brought up in on-campus living debates. Authors such as Long base academic success mainly on a student’s GPA, and while that is a decent determinant of success, it is not the only one. A factor that determines academic success is being able to progress to a higher level of schooling each year, and as students grow older they are shown to report being more confident in their academic success (Wang et. Al 20). Long tells us that students feel most successful when they are able to experience opportunities such as volunteering and studying abroad, and by feel healthy (70). When a student lives in on-campus housing they are often not able to study abroad and get to experience a foreign land, and this makes the student feel less about their college experience. A student’s health should be extremely important to all since even after college is far in the distance our health will never go away. It is refreshing to see the value that college student’s place on their health since it is so important, but the sad fact is that on-campus living truly does not offer good living conditions. When those poor living conditions start affecting a student’s health then their academic success begins to suffer as well.
Many authors, such as Larry D. Long, argue that living on-campus can be a great experience especially for freshmen as they transition to their new lives as college students. Being in community with one another is one of the most beneficial aspects that living on-campus offers. While I agree that community can help students adjust to their new lifestyle, I question if living in a dormitory is the only way that community can be felt? Is community really that beneficial for a student? According to Bronkema and Bowman, community does not improve a student’s academic success (624-30). Furthermore, it seems that a student can still be a part of a university without having to live on-campus and sacrifice their personal comfort. Although community may not have any benefits when it comes to a student’s academic success, it can still be beneficial for a student’s mental health if they are willing to make the needed sacrifices. Living on-campus is fine for students that want to make sacrifices of personal comfort for the benefits of community, but for the students that do not want to make those sacrifices they should not be required to.
While on-campus living arrangements should be offered by universities, they should not be required. College is an important time for students and they should be able to find peace as they embrace their new lives and homes. On-campus housing simply cannot match the living conditions as living off-campus. Residence halls and dormitories lack the living conditions that nurture a student’s mental and physical health. On-campus living also cost an exuberant amount of money and does not guarantee a student’s academic success. The bottom line is that universities should not require a student to live in a dormitory, and especially not if they are going to overcharge a student for the poor-living conditions they are going to be forced to live in.
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