Editorial | Live and let live (off campus)

Illustrated by Kaz Fantone

It’s no secret that Chapman is trying to expand its student housing. Although providing students with more places to live has been a topic of discussion for several years, the university kickstarted those efforts with its November 2017 $150 million purchase of the 399-unit Chapman Grand apartment complex, which welcomed its first student residents the week of Aug. 20. The Villa Park Orchards Residence Hall, which could house an additional 400 students, is set to open in August 2019.

Based on the fall 2017 undergraduate headcount, those 1,299 slots alone could house 18.5 percent of Chapman’s fall 2017 undergraduate population, according to the Office of Institutional Research. That’s a step toward Chapman’s longtime goal of housing 50 percent of undergraduates on university-owned property. Problem solved, right? Well, not for everyone.

Around the same time the university purchased the Chapman Grand apartment complex, administrators also announced a plan to mandate that all freshmen and sophomores live in university housing by fall 2019.

This new mandate, coupled with the new housing additions, might be practical for easing community relations in Orange and taking full advantage of expensive-to-build new housing facilities, but it’s just not feasible for every student.

Chapman’s 2018-19 housing rates put the nine-month price tag on a two-bedroom Chapman Grand apartment with two residents at $13,778. A two-bedroom suite in the Sandhu Residence Center for the same time period is $16,880. That means that – for these particular residences – each student would pay anywhere from around $1,500 to $1,800 per month.

But living off campus, students are able to choose from houses or apartments with multiple bedrooms, which can significantly lower what students pay.

As of July, the average house rental price in Orange was $3,150, according to real estate website Trulia. Many single-family homes in Orange have three or four bedrooms, meaning that students living in these homes pay an average of about $790 to $1,050 per month – even less if they’re sharing a room.

Although the Harris and Davis Apartments do have lower rates than other on-campus housing – around $640 to $850 a month per student – students aren’t guaranteed a spot in those less expensive residences, meaning that when housing selection rolls around, a student could be stuck with a pricier residence than they expected.

It’s unfair to mandate that students choose from a preapproved list of housing options, especially when many who aren’t freshmen are just beginning to explore their independence – 91 percent of freshmen lived on campus in fall 2017, but only 30 percent of sophomores did.

The higher cost of on-campus residences is understandable, because after all, those rates can include things like utilities, Wi-Fi and maintenance. And some students choose to live in on-campus housing for a variety of reasons: being a Resident Advisor, proximity to classes and on-campus jobs, or simply to get the “college experience.” Still, it’s not an experience everyone can afford – and Chapman shouldn’t deny its students their right to decide what living arrangement is best for them.