For another year in a row, MSU has taken in too many students than it can house, resulting in the crowded, cramped transitional housing that is affecting so many students. Last year, hundreds of students were affected by a shortage of on-campus housing. As of last week, 545 are packed in dorms meant for only two people.
It’s not just because of the recent large freshman classes.
For more than a decade, MSU has been a habitual offender when it comes to housing three students in two-person dorms. In 2004, nearly 750 dorms were overbooked at the beginning of the school year.
It’s understandable that some calculation errors occur, but year after year hundreds of students are displaced because of the combination of too many enrolled students and too few dorms available.
Why does it keep happening?
The university expects a fair amount of admitted students to withdraw from MSU or opt out of on-campus housing, but the current situation proves that assumption was wrong once again. And once again, students had to deal with transitional housing for yet another.
Surely, there is a better way.
Although the number of students in transitional housing rooms has receded slightly so far this year — it’s intended to be temporary and should continue decreasing — there still are many who are stuck with the inconvenience of having an extra roommate. Students are reimbursed only a fraction of what they paid to live on campus, and not all are guaranteed a quick transition to suitable housing arrangements.
It seems that everything else on campus is improving: Spartan Stadium, cafeterias and newly renovated dorms. Yet students still are trapped in rooms much too small for three people to cohabitate.
The logical step to fix the situation seems simple: during planned renovations, tweak the dorms to accommodate three people if need be. Build more housing. Do whatever is necessary to stop shoving three people into walk-in closet sized rooms that leave no space for belongings and privacy, because privacy is a commodity when living in dorms.
After a long day of class, trudging across campus and doing painstaking hours of homework, the last thing any student wants to do is come home to an overcrowded shoebox.
Not only does MSU admit more students than it can house, but there are no alternatives to living in transitional housing.
While fliers and advertisements for house rentals, apartments and cooperative housing still are circulating, freshmen living in transitional housing do not have the option to take advantage of those opportunities.
Students in transitional housing, freshmen in particular, literally are paying the price for the university’s miscalculations.
If that weren’t bad enough, some students even have to live with their resident assistants — creating an even more uncomfortable living space.
Since the main job of a resident assistant is to supervise, living with a 24/7 watchdog would be unnerving and annoying.
Living on campus is supposed to be the next step to living on your own and being self-sufficient. Having a live-in babysitter contradicts the goal of living away from parents.
What’s even more confounding is that despite already being overcrowded, MSU still is piling on advertisements with the Live On campaign to entice more students to call campus home. When there already is steady interest in on-campus housing, it might be a mistake to broadcast rooms that might or might not be available next year.
Sure, living on campus has its perks: the camaraderie, prepared food and closeness to the university all are great reasons to pay more than $8,000 a year to live in a dorm.
And sure, transitional housing is meant to be just that: a temporary step to a better living situation.
Many have no problem with tight quarters. About 172 students have chosen to continue with the accommodations this year.
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But once you add in the lack of space and privacy that comes with transitional housing, the potential for third-wheel conflicts and the possibility of living with a resident assistant, poor planning on the part of the university is costing at least some students their comfort, personal space and freedom.
And that’s a price that no student should be forced to pay.
