Sacramento State Students Protest New Policy That Requires Them to Live on Campus
“The university said it plans to offer a number of exemptions, including students facing financial hardships or those living locally.”
Do these students realize that there are thousands of other colleges they can apply to?
KCRA News reports:
Sacramento State students protest new on-campus living requirement
Sacramento State students are protesting against a new university policy that requires them to live on campus for their first two academic years.
The university, which has long been known as a commuter campus, announced the change last month. The university said the new policy is aimed at “student success, community engagement, and academic achievement.”
“I’m sure a ton of you know why we’re here, and it’s because we don’t like the housing requirements,” Emma Beck said to the dozens of protestors gathered outside of the library on Thursday evening.
Beck, the student who organized the protest, highlighted the financial burden the new policy could impose on students who choose to commute to class.
“A lot of students have negative feelings about the requirement,” she said. “I chose to live on campus my first semester here because it was convenient, but then I chose to move away because it was too expensive. So, there’s two sides of the coin that they’re not really seeing.”
The university said it plans to offer a number of exemptions, including students facing financial hardships or those living locally.
Beginning fall 2026, students living with immediate family within 50 miles of campus will be exempt, but the distance will be reduced to 30 miles in 2027.
Other exemptions include those age 21 or older by the first day of classes, students considered independent on the FAFSA, active-duty service members, those required to live at their job site (like caregivers), study abroad students, and those with disabilities or medical conditions that cannot be accommodated in student housing.
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Comments
No, watch the price of student housing. Go up 50% the first semester and 100% the second semester and onward.
Cry me a river. When I went to MIT, all freshmen had to live in a campus dorm or a recognized frat house for the first year. No nerds were harmed during the making of those degrees. A few people groused, but nobody “demanded.”
This sounds like little more than the school making sure they have access to students for DEI indoctrination, and to their wallets for additional revenue.
Despite the professed aims of the policy: ‘student success, community engagement, and academic achievement,’ what evidence is there that living on campus actually advances those goals, or are they purely aspirational? Especially at a commuter college. And how do they reconcile forcing these requirements on some students while waiving them for others who live within a particular geographic radius?
Above all, how much is this expected to cost the students and how much revenue will be generated for the school?
“And how do they reconcile forcing these requirements on some students while waiving them for others who live within a particular geographic radius?”
In my day, it was because you lived at home, and you were required to do that, not take an apartment.
Agreed. But it just seems to me that if it’s okay for some students to live at home then they’re not reaping the supposed benefits of living on campus, and there’s no real justification for requiring some to live on campus. Provide the option and opportunity, certainly. But I don’t think mandating on campus residence is justified.
The “supposed benefit” was relieving them of the additional pressures of independent living: maintaining a household, facing evictions, supporting themselves, and so on.
About as much benefit as bussing children across town to
disruptsit next to white kids so their learning environment would improve.“The university said the new policy is aimed at “student success, community engagement, and academic achievement.”
That’s a great name for a cash grab.
Not content with extracting money through tuition and fees, the schools has decided to make students another cash source.
On the other hand, I attended a state supported school in the late 1960s. It built a lot of student housing to accommodate the student boom. It also forces all non-commuter freshmen to live in University housing – those bonds weren’t going to pay themselves off.
But the BS about student success is just BS. It would be fascinating if Sacramento State issued a longitudinal study five years from now showing a meaningful increase in “student success.” Bet they won’t – because to be honest, they’d have to show the cost of the program. That would be accounting for any increased costs (over what private providers would charge, or the “free” board provided by a parent living outside the 50 (later 30) radius.
When I went to SUNY Stony Brook there were essentially 2 colleges. Residents and commuters. If you were living with family you could be a commuter when you started. If you were not living with family you had to live on campus for the first 2 years. We always understood it to be because the 18 and 19 year olds had enough to deal with in school without setting up house. Off-campus housing in Stony Brook was never cheaper than on campus housing. Just quieter and more independent and flexible. But that’s Long Island for you. I was a commuter for the record and I watch my friend struggle with on and off campus housing.