5 ms·

please don't price students out of college towns...

by novia 4y ago

cpach 4y ago
Doesn’t US students mostly live in dorms…?
- grapeskin 4y ago
  The first year, yeah. After that, people start moving out. I don’t know anybody who lived in a dorm from the third year onward. But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere. Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wanting to be near noisy, drunk, high college kids as an unaffiliated adult is honestly just weird.
  - cpach 4y ago
    Not really sure what to respond. Should people in the US not be free to move to any town they want? Seems like an odd take IMO.
    - grapeskin 4y ago
      You can move wherever you want. But on a forum where people frequently talk about the harm humans do, I think advising people to move to an area that exists basically for people who are just struggling to start their adult life seems like a bad move. Moving somewhere because you like the scenery, the food, whatever is fine. Moving there because there’s a college while you’re 15 years out of college is just strange.
    - petre 4y ago
      I guess that's how they managed to screw up Creste Butte, CO. Pandemic + WFH, opportunities to move somewhere with nice scenery and not enough infrastructure to support a whole score of newcomers.
  - tallanvor 4y ago
    Residence halls are generally competitively priced, and is often cheaper than comparable housing off campus. Residence halls are more expensive than they used to be, but a lot of that is due to the type of housing that students are demanding. University-owned housing isn't a profit center, it's only priced to cover the costs of providing it.
    - mbg721 4y ago
      Is that really true in college towns? My experience (at an urban university campus that required a year in the dorms) was that the dorms and meal plans were staggeringly expensive, but the cheaper off-campus housing tended to be in older homes that had seen some very hard use as students came and went. So maybe the dorm price would be comparable with a brand-new high-rise apartment, but students didn't really need that.
      - tallanvor 4y ago
        Off-campus housing often looks cheaper, but that's because you're often comparing apples to oranges. As you mention, the age of the property and how well it's been maintained often varies significantly. But most places you rent off-campus don't include utilities. --That old house in the Midwest or Northeast might look cheap compared to on-campus housing in August, but your electricity and gas bills in the fall and winter will quickly change your calculations. Another thing to keep in mind is that, on average, students living on campus have higher GPAs, are less likely to drop out, are more likely to finish on time, feel a greater sense of social belonging, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Those benefits need to be factored in as well. There have been a number of studies about this, here's a summary of one of them: https://studentlife.uoregon.edu/student-success-and-housing-report https://studentlife.uoregon.edu/student-success-and-housing-.... When it comes to meal plans, if you have your own kitchen then yes, you definitely CAN eat cheaper, but I don't know many college students who actually spend much time planning their meals, buying in bulk, and actually cooking the majority of their meals from scratch. Realistically they end up eating a lot of frozen dinners and eating out - especially for lunch when they're on campus anyway. When I look at the school I went to, their unlimited meal plan ends up costing about $9/meal on average, which is a lot, but that's 3 hot meals a day, all you can eat, and you don't have to spend time buying the ingredients, cooking the food, and cleaning up after yourself.
- mitchellst 4y ago
  Varies widely. Size of school, public/private, urban vs rural location, cost and availability of surrounding housing.
mmikeff 4y ago
You'll hear the opposite refrain where I live, as the expansion of the university prices locals out of rented accommodation.
UncleMeat 4y ago
College students tend to live in apartments or housing focused on college students where few other people want to live because of noise problems. Other people living in other areas of a college town are critically important for the health of a town, or else basically everything cannot exist while the student population is away.
bkberry352 4y ago
It's the opposite where I am: landlords raising rates to capture more of those sweet student loan dollars. The policy of making access to credit cheap and ubiquitous for students has led to drastic growth in rents (in addition to a large expansion in college amenities and administration). That's what's pricing out locals: students paying for housing with borrowed money.
davidw 4y ago
College towns could - crazy thought - build more housing for everyone who wants to live there. We even have the technology to stack dwelling units vertically to take advantage of scarce land!

please don't price students out of college towns...

by novia 4y ago

please don't price students out of college towns...

cpach 4y ago

Doesn’t US students mostly live in dorms…?

grapeskin 4y ago
The first year, yeah. After that, people start moving out. I don’t know anybody who lived in a dorm from the third year onward. But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere. Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wanting to be near noisy, drunk, high college kids as an unaffiliated adult is honestly just weird.
- cpach 4y ago
  Not really sure what to respond. Should people in the US not be free to move to any town they want? Seems like an odd take IMO.
  - grapeskin 4y ago
    You can move wherever you want. But on a forum where people frequently talk about the harm humans do, I think advising people to move to an area that exists basically for people who are just struggling to start their adult life seems like a bad move. Moving somewhere because you like the scenery, the food, whatever is fine. Moving there because there’s a college while you’re 15 years out of college is just strange.
  - petre 4y ago
    I guess that's how they managed to screw up Creste Butte, CO. Pandemic + WFH, opportunities to move somewhere with nice scenery and not enough infrastructure to support a whole score of newcomers.
- tallanvor 4y ago
  Residence halls are generally competitively priced, and is often cheaper than comparable housing off campus. Residence halls are more expensive than they used to be, but a lot of that is due to the type of housing that students are demanding. University-owned housing isn't a profit center, it's only priced to cover the costs of providing it.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    Is that really true in college towns? My experience (at an urban university campus that required a year in the dorms) was that the dorms and meal plans were staggeringly expensive, but the cheaper off-campus housing tended to be in older homes that had seen some very hard use as students came and went. So maybe the dorm price would be comparable with a brand-new high-rise apartment, but students didn't really need that.
    - tallanvor 4y ago
      Off-campus housing often looks cheaper, but that's because you're often comparing apples to oranges. As you mention, the age of the property and how well it's been maintained often varies significantly. But most places you rent off-campus don't include utilities. --That old house in the Midwest or Northeast might look cheap compared to on-campus housing in August, but your electricity and gas bills in the fall and winter will quickly change your calculations. Another thing to keep in mind is that, on average, students living on campus have higher GPAs, are less likely to drop out, are more likely to finish on time, feel a greater sense of social belonging, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Those benefits need to be factored in as well. There have been a number of studies about this, here's a summary of one of them: https://studentlife.uoregon.edu/student-success-and-housing-report https://studentlife.uoregon.edu/student-success-and-housing-.... When it comes to meal plans, if you have your own kitchen then yes, you definitely CAN eat cheaper, but I don't know many college students who actually spend much time planning their meals, buying in bulk, and actually cooking the majority of their meals from scratch. Realistically they end up eating a lot of frozen dinners and eating out - especially for lunch when they're on campus anyway. When I look at the school I went to, their unlimited meal plan ends up costing about $9/meal on average, which is a lot, but that's 3 hot meals a day, all you can eat, and you don't have to spend time buying the ingredients, cooking the food, and cleaning up after yourself.
mitchellst 4y ago
Varies widely. Size of school, public/private, urban vs rural location, cost and availability of surrounding housing.

mmikeff 4y ago

You'll hear the opposite refrain where I live, as the expansion of the university prices locals out of rented accommodation.

UncleMeat 4y ago

College students tend to live in apartments or housing focused on college students where few other people want to live because of noise problems. Other people living in other areas of a college town are critically important for the health of a town, or else basically everything cannot exist while the student population is away.

bkberry352 4y ago

It's the opposite where I am: landlords raising rates to capture more of those sweet student loan dollars. The policy of making access to credit cheap and ubiquitous for students has led to drastic growth in rents (in addition to a large expansion in college amenities and administration). That's what's pricing out locals: students paying for housing with borrowed money.

davidw 4y ago

College towns could - crazy thought - build more housing for everyone who wants to live there. We even have the technology to stack dwelling units vertically to take advantage of scarce land!