From my little desk in the corner of the Housing Office in Wolman 103, I’ve gotten to witness the freshman and sophomore classes grow into the comfort of calling their dorms “home.” Groups of strangers on move-in day leave as best friends on move-out.
The novelty of the freshman year roommate, movie nights with the whole friend group huddled together on a twin double XL, the noisy neighbors down the hall; the quintessential college experience is incomplete without living on campus. There’s something so enticing about dorm life. Yes, my friends had a mouse for a roommate for the better part of freshman year. And yes, my roommate and I were living in the equivalent of a sauna when our thermostat broke sophomore year. But it’s the chaos of dorm life that makes it such an integral part of being at college.
For students who look to the University for support with residential life, whether it’s due to affordability or desire for a community, it seems justified for university housing to be guaranteed for all four years. On the surface, university housing is convenient. Whether it’s safety, maintenance, or dorm facilities, living on campus means one less burden to worry over when you’re studying for three midterms simultaneously. But at its core, residential life is a community. I miss living a few doors down from my closest friends or meeting Kim, the nightshift Char Mar worker, on our midnight runs for Taharka ice cream. Going from Commons, my sophomore-year dorm, to my junior-year apartment marked the transition of going from a college student to a college adult. Walking to class together, spirit brunch at FFC and bumping into your friends in the hallway were things I took for granted as an underclassman.
There’s this charm about university housing that just can’t be replicated anywhere else. The shared experience of brushing your teeth in the bathroom as the girl to your right is crying over her last exam while the girl to your left is getting ready for a night out with her friends is about as college as it gets.
Beyond the loss of community, living off campus comes with its fair share of hidden costs and difficulties. Finding housing that’s affordable and close to campus shouldn’t be something a sophomore in college needs to worry about. The oligopoly of apartment buildings around campus isn’t exactly rooted in making pricing fair for its students either. I remember calling leasing offices with the hopes of finding some guarantee of a roof over our heads, only to be met with the uncertainty of being placed on waitlists at these apartment buildings. According to the U.S. Congress Joint Economics Committee, the cost of inflation in Maryland is increasing more rapidly than the national average, placing the average household in Maryland in a position to pay $1246 more per month than other states in the country. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics further specifies that the cost of housing in Baltimore has risen by 4.6% since December 2024, making housing generally unaffordable for the average college student.
Don’t get me wrong, apartment life is great. Beyond the independence, getting to build a little home with my roommates has been its own invaluable experience that I’ve grown to love. Whether it’s coming home to a batch of freshly baked cookies or hosting birthdays, the freedom of having your own place makes way for new traditions in the last two years of college. Not to mention, living in a room that’s bigger than a matchbox is also something I can’t complain about. But life as a college adult is just another reminder that we’re just that much closer to entering the real world. Beyond the practicalities of living on campus, university housing is an escape from the real world, and living on campus gives us the luxury of being able to forget that for as long as we’re here.
Other institutions, like the University of Oregon and the University of Connecticut have used student surveys and reports to demonstrate that the benefits of university housing can be tracked empirically. Both universities found a trend of increasing GPA among students who stayed in university housing. Research from the University of Oregon found that students who lived on campus during their first year earned GPAs 0.13 points higher than those who lived off campys, with the gap widening to 0.17 points by their fourth year. Not only does this support the argument that university housing should be guaranteed, but it is also testament to the long-term benefit that such a service can have on the educational experience of students at the school.
When considering the loss of community or the lack of affordability, it seems justified that university housing should be guaranteed for all four years. However, guaranteeing housing should not mean mandating it. It’s understandable that living on campus is probably not for everyone. In an ideal world, we would have the choice to opt in to university housing, making living off campus rooted in choice over necessity. A huge part of feeling at home in college is being comfortable with where you’re living, which is why getting to have the chance to choose how you live during these years should be the norm.
Time at college is fleeting. Holding on to that sense of community at the place that most feels like home is more valuable than you would think. From my little desk in the corner of the Housing Office in Wolman 103, I watch that community grow over the months. Every pair of keys unlocks a new relationship, a new experience and a new home, and it’s a shame to lose that part of the college experience without a say in it. Guaranteed four-year university housing means more than having a roof over your head. It’s the security of belonging in this nest for all four years.
Kashvi Ganesh is a junior from Mumbia, India majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology.
