OSU Sophomores Now Required To Live on Campus

Out of town sophomore students at Ohio State University will now be required to live on campus starting this fall semester.

According to a WOSU article, the university hopes to enhance student development and success.

OSU will now be among a number of Ohio schools that require sophomores to live on campus.

As a recent graduate from Ohio University, I can say that living on campus my first two years was an incredible experience that I wouldn’t trade for the comfiest bedroom or the largest fully stocked kitchen. Having to learn to live with and share my personal space with what were practically strangers was a great learning experience. Having a resident assistant (RA) on hand to guide me was invaluable, and I would still be lost in the cacophony of my freshman year if it wasn’t for my RA.

Yet, living on campus for a second year was the major reason I became an RA my third and fourth year of college; free housing to make up for the two years my family spent thousands on the dorms.

In Columbus, students are paying anywhere from $400 to $1000 a month in off-campus housing that offers private rooms, bathrooms and kitchens. On campus, students are paying about $4,000 a semester for a shared room.

Financial strain can affect both the students and those who rent to students.

“I’ve been 100 percent for 30 years, the only time I wasn’t leased is if I bought somebody’s problem and fixed it and then the next year we’re 100 percent leased,” Tom Heilman of Hometeam Properties, explains to WOSU. His properties are now just 95 percent leased, rent is down as low as $300, and the new vacancies could cost the company around $35,000 a month.

Yet, while OSU is among many Ohio schools that enforce second-year on-campus housing, it’s the only Big Ten school that does so.

Student development is always a top priority from student residential housing departments across the board, but why this rule for OSU now, and why in this aspect is OSU so out of place among the Big Ten?

Students are slated to start moving back on campus this Thursday and classes begin August 23.

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