AHI: United States » Student housing

Pay more, or consume less

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:19:08 +0000

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

To-ga! To-ga! To-ga!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

“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%.

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

Send post as PDF to

You’d rather we were sleeping together? Part 2, not five

admin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:08:34 +0000

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]

Yesterday we saw that Boston, whose mayor I’ve alternately tweaked and applauded, has now decided that while four or fewer students living together are all right, five or more are right out:

In the Real World, will three of you have to move out?

Continuing from the Boston Globe story, we discover that the principal sponsor is claiming his law is legal:

Councilor Michael Ross, who sponsored the regulation, said that other municipalities – including Newark, Del., Bloomsburg, Penn., and Bowling Green, Ohio – had adopted similar zoning restrictions targeting college students and that courts have upheld the restrictions.

If I have time – or if a helpful reader will send them to me – I’ll research those statutes, and see whether they are in fact similar, and whether they’re enforceable.

The new law returns the city’s policy on off-campus student housing to the provision in effect in 2003, when a Boston court overturned a similar restriction.

I wonder what’s different from the previous ordinance. We can be sure there will be something, because even local politicians know they have to vary, lest the new law be thrown out.\\

Hey, we changed the wording!

The new law is designed to discourage landlords from turning single- and two-family dwellings into high-rent, multi-bedroom apartments for large numbers of students, Ross and other supporters said.

Actually, Councilor Ross, that’s just what owners will do to evade your ordinance, if it survives legal challenge. Dividing the house into separate-entry flats will make it into apartments, and then a group of four can live in it.

“You can’t let profit dominate the public debate,” he said.

Nor can you eliminate profit just because you think it’s debatable.

He estimated that at least 5,000 housing units would be affected in Boston.

All but guaranteeing immediate litigation.

As is, right now, daddy-O

Opponents, many of them property owners and college students, said the occupancy limit violates their property rights and, by focusing just on students and not other large groups of renters, unfairly singles out specific people.

“This is a back-door form of rent control,” said Stephen Greenbaum, a Boston lawyer specializing in real estate and land use, who spoke against the proposal at yesterday’s hearing. “You can’t simply single out a particular group and say they can’t live together.“

Imagine the hubbub if a city ordinance precluded four or more blacks, Asians, or women from living together. You think the ACLU would be on the case?

“If you took out the phrase college student and insert [an ethnic group], it would be a clear civil rights violation,” said Jon Phoenix, a Northeastern University freshman. “There shouldn’t be anything wrong with five friends wanting to live together.”

Northeastern University student Jon Phoenix spoke on the off-campus occupancy limit yesterday, as a large crowd thronged the Zoning Commission hearing.

Some property owners denounced the plan as unenforceable and said it would backfire by deepening a housing shortage that would drive up rents.

Yes, but what use is logic if you’re a landlord?

I’m from the neighborhood and I vote

They urged the city to focus on enforcing other occupancy codes and on cracking down on absentee landlords, rather than restricting their property rights and ability to turn a profit.

“If you reduce my five-bedroom to four, I’ll just raise the rent to what I would have gotten,” said Greg Hummel, a Brighton property owner.

Nice threat, Mr. Hummel, but just because you raise the rent doesn’t mean you’ll get it, any more than Owen Glendower could call spirits from the vasty deep.

“And if students can’t afford it, do you think the Starbucks crowd will pay any less?”

Now that you mention it, I do – that’s how markets work, different people paying different things.

The measure changes how the zoning code defines a family, to prevent five or more unrelated, full-time students from living together. Larger groups can live together, as long as they are not students.

This is too hilarious. Does that mean that students who sleep together count as one unit, but students who are mutually celibate don’t?

The same city that prides itself on tolerance, that embraces every other form of personal rights, feel it has the ability and the justification to define what constitutes a family – and whatever a family it, a student group house isn’t it.

Nope, you’re not living in the Real World, either

At yesterday’s hearing, Boston police Captain William Evans said he had seen how large groups of students living together often hurt residents’ quality of life.

“We dread September and October in the Fenway and Allston-Brighton area,” he said. “It’s a tremendous drain on our resources.”

This will be true regardless of the housing requirement; it’s the people, not the units, that creates the congestion.

“Nothing bothers me more than hearing people are fed up and fleeing the city.”

They’re probably not fleeing Allston-Brighton or Fenway. Anyone who’s been through either knows those neighborhoods are college central.

Allston-Brighton’s that boxy polyp south of Harvard, east of BC, west of BU

Several college officials said the move would help combat the growing problem of students in groups as large as 12 living in housing poorly maintained by absentee landlords.

If your problem is that the housing is poor quality, enforce the building codes.

“It’s a disgrace, and it’s very dangerous,” said Sandra Pascal, associate vice president of community affairs at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Jeffrey Doggett – director of government relations and community affairs at Northeastern University, which is building a 1,200-student dormitory at Ruggles and Tremont streets – said the proliferation of students living together in large numbers on residential streets has reached a tipping point.

It started out so small, and look how it’s grown

“We think it’s critical this happen now,” he said. “We’ve waited too long for this, and it’s in the best interests of both the neighborhood and the students.”

Students said that the restriction infringed on their rights and that they needed many roommates to afford to live in an expensive city.

(A sampling of colleges in Boston – including Boston, Northeastern, and Suffolk universities, Boston and Emerson colleges, and Wentworth Institute of Technology – found room and board typically costs at least $10,000 this academic year. In Boston, four-bedroom apartments can be found for under $3,000 a month.)

That parenthetical mixes two different numbers, housing only versus housing plus food, so let’s make them equivalent.

If we assume four roommates, $3,000/ 4 = $750 x 8 months (September to April) = $6,000 per academic year for housing, leaving $4,000 per academic year (say, 225 days) for food, or about $18 per day.

In other words, dorm living costs about as much as living off campus — and given those facts, many students would prefer to live off campus, especially when off-campus is right in student-friendly bar-dotted Boston, giving credence to the owners’ theory:

Property owners said they believed that colleges supported the plan in order to steer students toward their dormitories.

Certainly possible – once you’ve built the dorm, you really want the students to live in it. Universities that have built dorms thus have a mercantilist interest in joining forces with NIMBYite neighbors to keep the students down on the farm.

Some students, such as Allison Pyburn, a recent Suffolk graduate who just signed a lease to live with four Simmons undergraduates in the Fenway, said the new law would make it harder for students to make ends meet.

Unless they shift their family configuration along with their housing configuration and bunk up together – and we know what more bedrooms mean, don’t we?

“It’s almost impossible to afford to live here already,” she said.

I’ll give you a break on the rent