Don't let your kid move off campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your 20-year-old is not capable of living off-campus and still successfully attending classes, you should be very concerned.

It's not the classes that are the issue, it is that when you're on campus it is much easier to be involved in study groups, group projects, and to get help on homework. I went to a tough STEM school and those things were really important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LACs are desperate for money.

No, many LACs are in small towns where:
- there’s not a ton of housing for everyone to live off campus
- no public transportation so if you do, you need a car or to live close enough and even then the grocery stores and everything else are not walkable
- all of the social life is centered around the campus

Everyone I knew lived in dorms all four years, just for these reasons. It's different if you go to a large state university and there is not enough dorm space to go around. Dorms now are typically so much nicer than they were years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your 20-year-old is not capable of living off-campus and still successfully attending classes, you should be very concerned.

It's not the classes that are the issue, it is that when you're on campus it is much easier to be involved in study groups, group projects, and to get help on homework. I went to a tough STEM school and those things were really important.

My kid’s “off campus” apartment is closer to labs and libraries than the dorm was. That would have been much harder to pull off where I went to college — this stuff really varies. By 3rd year certainly (and even earlier in DC’s case), study groups organized themselves more by class/section/where you study than by where you live. Again, depends on the college. My school had a house system so, to some extent/in your major there was an overlap between which section you were in/where you studied and where you lived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your 20-year-old is not capable of living off-campus and still successfully attending classes, you should be very concerned.

It's not the classes that are the issue, it is that when you're on campus it is much easier to be involved in study groups, group projects, and to get help on homework. I went to a tough STEM school and those things were really important.

This.

Off campus housing makes it much less likely students will fully participate in college life. The result is a much-increased drop-out rate. Most colleges and universities are trying to get out of the housing business. This results in a lot of off campus student-only housing. That may alter the stats but the stats are real and I know of multiple families whose kids have starting cutting classes and failed to graduate after moving into an apartment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My college now requires students to live on campuses all three years. The rule has nothing to do with fostering a learning environment. The school just realized that everyone was moving off campus ASAP and the school was losing on housing and dorm fees. So they tripled up old dorms and required everyone to stay on campus thru junior year. Yuck. I moved off after freshman year.

How is that even legal??

Huh? It's a private enterprise with a condition of enrollment. How would it NOT be legal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At many schools, housing is only guaranteed for freshmen and sophomores (some schools even freshmen only)...so even if a student wanted to live in the dorms as a junior/senior (which I agree would be very far out of the norm for pretty much every college student)...that might not be an option...

Yeah everyone lived on campus the first two years of college and then everyone moved off because we were forced to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LACs are desperate for money.

No, many LACs are in small towns where:
- there’s not a ton of housing for everyone to live off campus
- no public transportation so if you do, you need a car or to live close enough and even then the grocery stores and everything else are not walkable
- all of the social life is centered around the campus

My LAC allowed a few seniors to live off campus and you had to get approval. For the reasons listed and because of town/gown relations (students aren't always the greatest neighbors). My DD went to a LAC and they had a similar policy - maybe 100 students were allowed to live off campus. By contrast my DS went to a big university and the majority of upperclassmen lived off campus but most of those student apartments were as close to campus as the dorms and essentially function just like a dorm except you pay rent to the apartment not to the college. There really wasn't much difference in the experience of my two kids in terms of engagement in school, social life, etc. So maybe this is an issues at some schools, but it's not universal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After sophomore year they will insist that everyone is moving out. They can't possibly live in a dorm or campus apartment. It will be cheaper. The will work to help pay for it. Don't buy any of this. Your student's chances of persisting to graduation drop off a cliff, statistically, once they move off campus. I know. I'm a dinosaur. Flame away. It's the truth.

#PublicUniversityProblems

Public universities have too many kids, too few dorms, the gap between bottom 20% and top 20% is vast, and there are too few faculty to have face-to-face interaction with struggling kids.

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

[Anonymous]

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

Yes, obviously no one should attend a public university.

The majority of upperclassman who move off campus at public universities do just fine (and plenty of kids crash and burn during freshman year while living in dorms). Not everyone is interested in "clowning around" with "goofs."

DD just spent her sophomore year living off-campus with two non-student roommates 1500 miles away. She had all As spring semester and spends plenty of time studying and working on group projects on campus. She knows her professors, talks to them during office hours, and gives them an explanation if she misses class for some reason. She's grateful that we're paying for college and actually appreciates being there. This is a school with 20,000+ undergrads that is probably not DCUM approved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After sophomore year they will insist that everyone is moving out. They can't possibly live in a dorm or campus apartment. It will be cheaper. The will work to help pay for it. Don't buy any of this. Your student's chances of persisting to graduation drop off a cliff, statistically, once they move off campus. I know. I'm a dinosaur. Flame away. It's the truth.

#PublicUniversityProblems

Public universities have too many kids, too few dorms, the gap between bottom 20% and top 20% is vast, and there are too few faculty to have face-to-face interaction with struggling kids.

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

Lol. If you’re expecting a professor to knock on your child’s door when he misses class...good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

I lived in a hideous, mouse infested attic in Somerville for two years of undergrad. It wasn't a trendy part of Somerville, and took too long to walk to the T in winter, when snow drifted high. The landlady was an addled "artist" who used to wait for the sound of my key, then pounce to tell me I was using my space heater too much (no heating in the attic, and it was soooo cold in the winter, even with the space heater). It was great!

I never missed class, and I graduated on time. Many of my friends lived off campus; all of us graduated on time.

OP, if you are blaming your kid's off-campus housing for a failure to thrive or graduate on time, I suggest that perhaps your child simply lacked the maturity or drive for higher education at that time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After sophomore year they will insist that everyone is moving out. They can't possibly live in a dorm or campus apartment. It will be cheaper. The will work to help pay for it. Don't buy any of this. Your student's chances of persisting to graduation drop off a cliff, statistically, once they move off campus. I know. I'm a dinosaur. Flame away. It's the truth.

#PublicUniversityProblems

Public universities have too many kids, too few dorms, the gap between bottom 20% and top 20% is vast, and there are too few faculty to have face-to-face interaction with struggling kids.

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

This was untrue at Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your 20-year-old is not capable of living off-campus and still successfully attending classes, you should be very concerned.

It's not the classes that are the issue, it is that when you're on campus it is much easier to be involved in study groups, group projects, and to get help on homework. I went to a tough STEM school and those things were really important.

This.

Off campus housing makes it much less likely students will fully participate in college life. The result is a much-increased drop-out rate. Most colleges and universities are trying to get out of the housing business. This results in a lot of off campus student-only housing. That may alter the stats but the stats are real and I know of multiple families whose kids have starting cutting classes and failed to graduate after moving into an apartment.

Their kids were not college material. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After sophomore year they will insist that everyone is moving out. They can't possibly live in a dorm or campus apartment. It will be cheaper. The will work to help pay for it. Don't buy any of this. Your student's chances of persisting to graduation drop off a cliff, statistically, once they move off campus. I know. I'm a dinosaur. Flame away. It's the truth.

#PublicUniversityProblems

Public universities have too many kids, too few dorms, the gap between bottom 20% and top 20% is vast, and there are too few faculty to have face-to-face interaction with struggling kids.

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

This was untrue at Harvard.

It’s untrue at every college in the country. I don’t know what PP is smoking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After sophomore year they will insist that everyone is moving out. They can't possibly live in a dorm or campus apartment. It will be cheaper. The will work to help pay for it. Don't buy any of this. Your student's chances of persisting to graduation drop off a cliff, statistically, once they move off campus. I know. I'm a dinosaur. Flame away. It's the truth.

#PublicUniversityProblems

Public universities have too many kids, too few dorms, the gap between bottom 20% and top 20% is vast, and there are too few faculty to have face-to-face interaction with struggling kids.

At a public U if you're goofing off you can EASILY find other goofs to clown around with. Miss class for months? Nobody cares. Fail all your classes? Nobody cares. Go home and never come back? Nobody cares.

At decent privates you ditch one class everyone knows. Your door is getting knocked on by faculty. Your classmates are going to bother you. You'll be seen as abnormal. You can't fly under the radar at a decent private.

This was untrue at Harvard.

Also untrue at Columbia and Northwestern.