Keene State College requires students with 59 credits or fewer to live on campus.
This policy can have a negative consequence on students with limited financial resources, while also posing ethical dilemmas related to student self-determination.
The policy allows for exemptions when a student lives 30 miles or less from campus, is married or has children at home or has completed 60 or more credits. According to the college’s official On-Campus Residency Requirement Exemption Request form, other circumstances can be considered when requesting an exemption but cannot be guaranteed.
The criteria for exemption from this requirement is insufficiently narrow, and Keene State College should reconsider this policy in order to promote student success.
According to the Office of Transitions and Community Living, the on-campus living requirement is meant to promote student development and success.
KSC’s official website states, “In order to ease your transition to college – and increase your chances for success – Keene State College requires all students with 59 credits or less to live on campus. This approach supports significant research indicating that students who live on campus are more likely to be successful academically, socially and developmentally.”
Required on-campus living is not exclusive to Keene State College. Colleges all over the United States have similar policies in place, and offer similar rationales for their requirements. Building community, accessing campus resources and taking full advantage of the college experience are often the central points of these rationales.
While living on campus can be a wonderful experience for many students, the possible benefits fail to justify policies that coerce paying students and their families.
According to a NerdWallet article written by Elizabeth Renter in 2019, the cost for attending college can be a barrier for prospective students, especially when coming from a low-income household. The conversation surrounding the student debt crisis has highlighted the need to make college affordable and accessible. Requiring students to pay for on-campus housing creates more challenges to earning a degree, which have nothing to do with academic potential.
While living on campus can be a wonderful experience, these possible benefits fail to justify coercion as a means to encourage student success on an objective level. Not all students will benefit from the on-campus experience, and not all students are interested in taking advantage of everything a college has to offer.
Colleges have a duty to provide a quality education to students, not force their vision of personal development on financially liable adults. Rationales of “encouraging student success” through required residency abandon the college’s prime objective, while simultaneously securing housing revenue from a captive market.
This is not what Keene State College is all about. We are committed to uplifting a new generation of thinkers, professionals and productive members of society. When unnecessary financial and logistical barriers stand in the way of a KSC diploma, that guiding ethos is tragically undermined. Reforming these misguided policies will generate student self-determination, while opening the door to underserved communities. We are better than this.
Ryan Pacheco can be contacted at
rpacheco@kscequinox.com
