University officials announced this week that starting with the class of 2016, students will be required to live on campus for both freshman and sophomore year. Previously, students were only required to live on campus for their first year. Also part of the new rule is that freshman and sophomores will be required to live in LLCs.
This new implication will affect every student at Northeastern – in good ways and bad. Officials said the decision was primarily based on the benefits it will provide to students, like creating more of a community on campus. But it will also help to satisfy residents of surrounding communities like Mission Hill.
In a March 21 article titled “Mission Hill residents address concerns to university officials,” The News reported that Northeastern officials were harshly criticized by local residents for failing to follow through with a promise to build additional dorms to bring students back to campus.
Because of debt incurred from the recession, Northeastern put all construction projects on hold, including new residence halls. Housing is currently at capacity with 56 percent of the student body living on campus. And while the new housing rule does not increase the number of beds on campus, the university should be commended for making an effort to smooth over relationships with surrounding communities.
Requiring sophomores to live on campus will redistribute the student population in a way that will benefit neighboring communities. Younger, less mature students will be forced to live on campus. And the older, more mature students will be the ones living in areas like Mission Hill and Fenway – but not necessarily by choice.
Residents are complaining about Northeastern students’ obnoxious behavior on weekends when they are partying until 5 a.m. But students are going to attend off-campus parties on weekends regardless of where they live, and a new housing rule will not fix this problem.
Another problem with this new requirement is the cost of on-campus housing. The lowest rate for upperclassman housing is $2,750 for a semester – and that is for an economy triple apartment. There are students living on the Hill who pay $500 a month, or $2,000 a semester, and have the privacy of their own bedroom. Some students simply cannot afford to live on campus, but will be made to nonetheless.
If sophomores are made to stay on campus, upperclassmen will be pushed off campus, and there are many upperclassmen who don’t want to be bothered with the responsibilities that come with an off-campus apartment – finding roommates, furniture, subletting, landlords, commuting, etc.
And what’s the point of forcing students to live in LLCs for their first two years on campus? College is about experiencing new things and meeting new people, not confining them to live with people who are interested in and think the same things as each other.
Though Northeastern is taking action to address the university’s relationship with community residents, there are still big problems facing the university when it comes to housing.
Parties are going to happen as long as students live on the Hill. Students are going to live on the Hill as long as there is not enough space on campus for them, and the high cost of living in residence halls persists. The university needs to increase the number of beds on campus, but until they are financially able to do so, changing the demographic of students living off campus will have to do.
