In the coming weeks, Boston’s new mayor Martin J. Walsh, who took over the helm at City Hall Monday from Boston’s long-time patriarch Thomas M. Menino, is sure to present plenty of ideas to address the city’s most pressing problems. How the Walsh administration addresses Boston’s overburdened housing stock could have a very direct effect on Boston college students.
In an interview with Boston.com’s new sister site BDCwire, Walsh said he would like to see schools build more on-campus housing to reduce the strain students put on the market while seeking off-campus accommodations. At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer solution. It is simple economics: if fewer students need to find housing in Boston’s neighborhoods, the market will be less competitive and with more availability, prices will fall. This is the ultimate goal for those trying to address the severe lack of affordable housing in Boston.
This solution would also be a political winner for Walsh. A loud minority of students have unfortunately proven time and time again to be terrible neighbors. As exemplified by community input during the Northeastern’s Institutional Master Plan (IMP) process, many residents of the Fenway and Mission Hill would love to see fewer students living in their neighborhoods. Since only a tragically small portion of Boston students are Boston voters, Walsh can help alleviate housing prices and please his constituents without needing any input from affected students.
This strategy would mirror that of the Menino regime. The IMP, which was approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in November, mandates that Northeastern houses 600 additional students within five years, and 1,000 within 10.
While building more dorms and moving more students onto campus may be a solution to Boston’s housing problem and is politically appealing to any city politician, it would ultimately be an ill-advised policy. Many, if not most, students don’t live off-campus just to escape the reach of resident assistants. The fact is, as expensive as the Boston rental market can be, off-campus housing is generally still a cheaper option than on-campus housing.
An economy single for upperclassmen at Northeastern goes for $8,930 for two semesters, which is about $1,116 per month. Compare this to apartments in Mission Hill where, according to Boston.com, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,571 per month, which split down the middle between two occupants is $785 each. By this metric it is $2,684 cheaper to live off campus over the course of the eight months from September through April. If you are staying for summer semesters or want to pick up an extra roommate or two, the annual savings will rise even higher.
If the city pushes the issue, the schools can build more housing and force more of their students to live on campus like Northeastern did in 2012 when it began to require all sophomores in addition to freshmen to live in dorms. If this happens, students will suffer financially. College – Northeastern in particular – is expensive enough, and the cost of attending school in Boston will outpace that of other regions if students are forced to pay well above market rate to live and study in an already expensive city.
For a city as concerned about a brain drain as Boston, this would be an awfully short-sighted road to take. Boston’s economy relies on the city being a center of higher education, and thus municipal policy should encourage students to chose the Hub as a place to learn. Herding more students into dorms would do just the opposite. A far better solution would be build more low-income housing – but that never goes over as well with the voters.
