Overbooking of Virginia Tech’s residence halls for the upcoming school year has forced Tech’s housing department to create a buyout offer to entice students to move off campus, causing a vehement response by Tech students.
Housing and residence life’s offer has generated student response and has sparked controversy, since its announcement in July.
The offer gives students currently choosing to live on campus the option to move off campus and receive compensation from housing. Students that choose to live off campus will be refunded their housing contract deposit and will receive $300 in dining dollars for on-campus dining facilities, along with guaranteed suite-style housing for the next school year. Housing and residence life will also assist students accepting the offer find off-campus housing.
The original offer was extended only to returning undergraduate and transfer students, but now the offer has been given to incoming freshmen, who are usually required to live on campus unless meeting certain circumstances. The new buyout offer came after housing’s contract cancellation projection for the coming year was not met, due to factors such as lower transfer and suspension rates from the previous school year and higher demand for on-campus housing.
Tech has also seen a decrease in the number of local residents commuting to campus and an increase in members of the Corps of Cadets.
Housing hopes to see around 200 students accept the offer, although they have received fewer than 100 so far.
Until the offer has been met, housing plans to implement a few strategies to cope with the housing deficit.
Resident advisors will be required to have roommates this year, and some study lounges will be temporarily converted into rooms for student use until housing has enough rooms to house all on-campus students.
The buyout has spurred a lot of student interest, and students have taken the opportunity to speak out about their opinions of the offer.
“I think Tech is messing up by trying to move the freshmen off campus,” said sophomore communication major Erin Connors. “The freshmen are the ones who generally ‘need’ to live on campus, so it’s kind of unfair to ask them to move off.”
Other students had criticisms about the offer, saying that it was unfair to those students who were offered housing for the coming year, yet declined before the buyout offer was given to students.
“I think it’s unfair to students who chose to go off campus,” said sophomore business major Shannon Passaro. “Like we are helping the problem by not trying to live on campus as well, but we don’t get anything for it.”
However, housing and residence life believes that plenty of students have viewed the offer positively.
“A number of students have taken it and have been happy with it, and those that don’t find it as worth it aren’t taking it,” said Kenneth Belcher, senior associate director for housing services. “It’s a self-selecting offer – they’re not required to take it, it’s an option.”
Belcher said that he is excited about students’ preference to live on campus.
“We’re happy that students want to live with us,” Belcher said. “It’s a nice thing for students to want to live on campus.”
Belcher also said that he hopes that students will have the opportunity to stay on campus in the future and expressed housing and residence life’s dedication to students.
“I just wish we had more space available, and we didn’t have to turn away so many people,” Belcher said. “We love providing housing for students.”
A version of this article appeared in the Aug 4 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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"Resident advisors will be required to have roommates this year, and some study lounges will be temporarily converted into rooms for student use until housing has enough rooms to house all on-campus students."
This happens every year, at least since I was a freshman in 2006. When I was an RA 3 years ago, it was the same thing. Housing under-estimates every single year yet nothing is done. Something else is going on here.
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I think the difference this year is that the RA will keep the roommate? I'm not sure... truthfully, the article is not very clear. I was an RA also and had a roommate for a short period of time (well, some had them for long periods of time). Yes, this happens EVERY year.
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Tech students should be wildly outraged by this. It's unacceptable and totally irresponsible. You have 100 rooms then you get 100 students, not too complicated folks.
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Students should mad is right! They completely misjudge how many people want to live on campus every year! They seems to skrewed up more than usual this year wanting 200 students to accept their offer to move off-campus. I don't think freshmen should ever be enticed to live off campus. And if they weren't completely gutting the largest dorm on campus (making it unusable for a year) with the goal of reducing the number of beds they could meet demand better.
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They don't misjudge how many returning students will want to be on campus - that number they know exactly. What they don't know is exactly how many incoming freshman there will be. That will always be a gamble - it depends on how many kids accept their offers from VT. Right??
So @SS 100 rooms = 40 returning students + ??? incoming freshman. The logic IS that complicated.
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By the time you've been there 3 years, living on campus shouldn't be an option. Even third-years on campus are questionable. Time to grow up, and learn how to become a tenant or (likely with parents' help) a homeowner...or even a landlord.
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That's easy for you to say when your parents can afford to put you up in an apartment. Those off us who are doing everything we can to simply afford tuition in the first place need an inexpensive place to live. Most students that I've known moved off campus to drink and party. I wouldn't consider them "grown up" for having made that decision. Not every students mommy and daddy can buy them new mustangs and rent them apartments off campus every year.
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It's called working two jobs, both during the summer and school year, and getting roommates. I understand how getting roommates might be difficult for you because of the whining, so maybe three jobs are in order.
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Right because that's what we want to force our older students to do work 3 jobs. That's brilliant, who needs time to learn when you have to now pay rent in addition to tuition. So we're burdening students with more bills for what end exactly? Some false notion of maturity anonymous people you've never met need to live up to? You strike me as the type of person who went to college for the "college experience" rather than the opportunity to learn and grow as an academic. If that is the case I feel sorry for you and it explains your rather ignorant stance on this issue.
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Someone needs a diaper change. Or some ADD meds. Apparently any excuse will do.
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Perhaps if you had stayed on campus you would have been a bit more studious and could hold a debate with fellow academics. Instead you hurl insults like a juvenile and the only one acting like a grown up here is the person that stayed on campus. This is rather funny seeing as you claimed to be somehow more mature for having moved.
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That hurts coming from someone who immediately assumes that no one can be independent of "mommy and daddy" (your post of 8-5), then assumes that those who seek "the college experience" are somehow less worthy than those "who learn and grow as an academic" (your post of 8-9), followed up with an "I'm better than you" (your post of 8-10).
Virginia Tech prepares most for the real world. And most of the "older students" have figured that out. It sounds like you'd be better suited in the cloistered confines of Hampden-Sydney or Washington & Lee. Good luck with your "career" in academics, undoubtedly supplemented by trips to the unemployment office and an hourly wage pouring my coffee. Someday soon you may be forced to dry those tears, take a good look around, and figure out that whining about cheap housing isn't going to lower the rent.
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Oh Alum you are quite the card, I best check my deck to make sure I'm not missing a joker. Personal attacks and non sequiturs will not win an argument. They only show how empty and baseless your claims are. You obviously missed out on some very important lessons that Tech has to offer, you have my pity.
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The air must be thin way up on your throne. When facts, like limited student housing and high off campus rent, are met with a suggestion that one might work harder or be creative to address those facts, those suggestions are labeled "baseless claims." You're quite the academic.
Save your pity for someone who needs it; you. You'll need as much as you can get to keep up that wallowing.
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That could have been an argument but instead you took the low road of personal insults. In your desperate attempt to antagonize me you've only shown how childish and misinformed you are. You chose to attack rather than discuss and that speaks volumes about the type of person you are. It's a shame you didn't learn to discuss things like an adult while you were "growing up" off campus.
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I graduated two years ago, but in response to Alum, I'm pretty sure a Foxridge apartment is cheaper than living on campus. If you pay $350 including utilities for a 5 bedroom apt (assuming you can find four others to live with you) that's $4200/year. Living in the crappiest dorms, the upper quad, is $4000/year and living anywhere on the drillfield is more than $4500/year. Not to mention you can sublet your apartment in the summer. Yea, my parents never bought me a mustang (I'm not from Jersey nor a girl) but they were practical enough to force me to live off campus in order to grow as a person and be more independent.
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Why should freshman have to get the boot off campus. Shouldn't 2nd+ year students living on campus get these offers first? First year college living experience is almost essential as that sets up your entire 4 years and dorm life is a big part of that. This is messed up.
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2nd years didn't get the offer because there are very few second year students on campus.. only those with extenuating circumstances are on campus this year. Besides that, the students that feel so strongly about living on campus aren't getting a boot, they're getting an offer. Only the students who would rather live off campus are leaving. I asked to get out of my housing contract last year and got a prorated refund, so yes, there are first years who would rather live off campus.
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