Affordable Housing Institute : US

To-ga!  To-ga!  To-ga!

 

Students off campus – can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em — at least, that seems to be the prevailing wisdom of the student towns I’ve observed here in greater Boston and elsewhere (as I posted in No adolescents need apply).  Even as communities want the ‘right’ sort of people, they seem to want students’ money but not their selves, and so, as I posted in You’d rather we were sleeping together?, six months ago, some Boston neighborhoods were going to extraordinary judicial lengths to keep students from moving in:

 

Yet there are already ordinances against disturbing the peace.  Are these ineffective?  Or is it, as I’ve previously posted, that some people see students as merely another species of ‘those people’ that ordinary decent people like us don’t want to live around?

 

Because the measure will make it harder for students to live off campus, it will slow their influx into residential neighborhoods, chiefly Mission Hill, Brighton, and the Fenway, they said.

 

Sounds like NIMBYism gone respectable.

 

Students who crowd into high-rent apartments, they contend, have driven up housing costs and displaced many working- and middle-class families.

 

That argument makes negative sense.  If people have a certain amount of buying power, whether they consume more or less housing won’t change that; in fact, packing them in tighter is likely to mean less competition elsewhere.  More likely, packing them in will reduce their housing consumption (relative to spreading them out), again reducing pressure on the market.  In short, if you want lower rents, let the students pack in.

 

You realize, that’s more rent for me

 

Now the market’s done it for them, as revealed in this recent sob story from The Boston Globe:

 

Campus housing options scarce

Economy spurs a rush to dorms

 

Returning to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after a year teaching in China, Vincent Capone, a junior from Winthrop, was counting on a dorm room to save him the hassle, and considerable expense, of living off-campus. Unfortunately, a startling number of his fellow students had the same idea.

 

A land-grant university founded in 1863

 

Amherst is UMass’s main campus, a lovely woodsy town west of the Quabbin Reservoir, home to 20,000 undergraduates and 5,700 graduate students.

 

Inundated with requests for dormitory rooms, the university told Capone and some 200 other students that they should not expect college housing this fall and referred them to a database of local apartments and potential roommates.

 

Now Capone and scores of other returning college students are scrambling to find alternative lodging with the start of the semester just three weeks away. 

 

We’ll overlook that Mr. Capone, whose home is roughly eighty miles from his campus, ought to have figured out his housing accommodations much earlier.  He is, after all, a college student.

 

College officials across the country blame the housing crunch on rising utility, food, and commuting costs, which have made the once-trendy off-campus apartment an economic liability.

 

Housing demand is elastic, as I’ve written many times, and the amount and configuration of consumption rises and falls with economics. 

 

I can adapt my living circumstances

 

Owning a home is more expensive than renting, so when times are good, homeownership rises, and when times are bad, household size increases, as people move into smaller accommodations with more roommates.

 

“There’s a confluence of financial factors this summer,” said Edward Adelman, executive director of the Massachusetts State College Building Authority, which manages dormitories for the state college system [nine universities – Ed.]. “Students are looking to walk to breakfast and class, and leave the car in the lot a few days a week.”

 

We’ve seen previously that there’s a direct correlation between housing cost and transportation convenience:

 

As the study puts it:

 

“Drive ’til you qualify” is an option used by many working families seeking affordable housing by moving to far-flung suburbs. 

 

And the operative word is ‘drive’.

 

I’m here twice a day

 

The same economic logic applies to students, although with a twist. 

 

Try some new logic!

 

They want the car not for school, but for extracurricular activities.

 

Road trip!

 

If forced to cut back, they ditch the wheels, and they therefore live close to class.

 

Dormitories at the nine state colleges for the fall will be 5% above capacity, Adelman said, with three students sometimes sharing rooms meant for two.

 

Just as housing demand is elastic, housing supply is malleable.  That two-bedroom can become a three.

 

Colleges have traditionally urged students to live on campus, believing dormitories provide a safer, more engaged experience that encourages students to be more involved in college life. Surveys indicate that students who live on campus do better in school and are more likely to graduate, administrators say.

 

The freedom and amenities of off-campus life have long attracted undergraduates, and the ability to share living expenses with several roommates often makes it less expensive than campus housing.

 

The real reason, of course, is that the beer parties are better.

 

Much more fun off campus

 

This fall, however, the equation has changed. High food prices have made the campus meal plan more of a bargain, and surging fuel expenses have chased some students back to the fixed costs of the dormitory.

 

The cost of dorm rooms at Boston-area colleges varies widely by type and institution. At UMass-Amherst, a single room costs between $5,300 and $7,600 for the academic year. At Boston University, an apartment with two or more students costs $9,920, while a single apartment costs $13,270. Framingham State College, where most students commute to campus, charges about $5,000 a year.

 

If you do the math, assuming a nine-month academic year and 2-4 students per dorm apartment, you derive some really heroic rent levels.  That’s because students are, in real-estate speak, a management-intensive constituency.  Apartment maintenance spikes upward; carpeting has to be replaced roughly once a year; repainting is annual as well.  Students work property hard, and they are charged commensurately.

 

“Responsible student, seeks roommates”

 

College rooming costs typically rise in tandem with tuition, but do not usually climb excessively from year to year. Total charges at four-year colleges last year rose about 6%.

 

“We’re expecting to open at capacity, and the demand is such that we’re looking into new residence halls,” said Glenn Cochran, director of residence life and housing at Framingham State. “Students are working hard to make it all work.”

 

At this point, Capone would settle for the most spartan room. Because he did not live on campus last year, he was not allowed to apply for housing until Aug. 1. This week, he said an employee at the housing office told him his odds of landing a room this fall were “slim and none.”

 

But with little savings, Capone, 21, said he cannot afford an apartment and said he may have to take the semester off.

 

“I’ve been able to pay for campus housing with financial aid and student loans, but with off-campus you have to pay up front,” he said. “School starts Sept. 1. What am I supposed to do?” 

 

Pay more or consume less.

 

For a hint on how to pay more, find the anagram of ENTRAPS.

 

Financially, anyway

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