Texas Schools Reqiring Freshmaen to Stay in Dorms

Texas A&M considering mandating that freshmen live on campus

Aggies and their parents make their way to the southside dorm area during move-in last week on the Texas A&M University campus. Fall semester classes start Monday for A&M, Blinn and both Bryan and College Station school districts.

By ALLEN REED

The largest university in Texas is considering a requirement to force all of its nearly 10,000 freshman students to live on campus.

Requiring freshmen to live on campus is common throughout the nation, the state and at peer institutions, but is not the status quo at Texas A&M. Top administrators talk openly about the idea, but Joe Weber, vice president of student affairs, said there's still a lot of input needed before such a significant change is made.

Students, many still upset by mandatory meal plans, are wary of any such proposal.

The primary reason A&M is considering the change is to boost academic success and increase retention rates, Weber said. National studies, as well as A&M's own statistics, show increases in those areas.

"Research ... very much supports freshmen living on campus first year do better academically and adjust better to college life," Weber said. "Here at A&M, where tradition, spirit and core values are very important, they get that on campus through student activities and programming through residence life. They don't necessarily get that off campus."

The majority of Southeastern Conference universities have a similar requirement, Weber said, adding that the Texas Legislature and the Board of Regents want to see students graduate on time.

"College is about education and learning and that doesn't just happen in the classroom," Weber said. "Our concern, particularly for the freshmen, is what are they doing with the 80 percent of the time they are not in the classroom? We want to complement their learning to set them up for success."

According to a 2010 University of Wisconsin-La Crosse study, on-campus living leads to better student performance. On-campus students had GPAs .3 to 1 point higher than their off-campus peers, and the impact continued to graduation. Students who once lived on campus finished with GPAs .2 to .4 points higher. The study also concluded on-campus students developed productive relationships with peers, participated more in extra-curricular activities and consumed less alcohol in subsequent semesters.

At A&M, the retention rate for students living on campus was nearly 5 percent higher than their off-campus peers, according to 2011 figures from the university. Looking at the same time period, off-campus students had a mean GPA of 2.8 as compared to on-campus students, who had a GPA mean of 2.9.

Texas A&M admitted a record number of freshmen to its main campus this semester -- 9,710. A&M's total enrollment is the largest in the state at 58,800, but that number includes branch campuses in Galveston and Qatar as well as the law school and health science locations.

Making room

A&M has a little less than 10,000 beds on campus, down from around 12,000 because of construction, Weber said. Approximately 4,000 more beds are on the way as part of the west campus housing project slated to come open in 2015.

Freshmen are already the overwhelming majority of on-campus residents. Approximately 65 percent of A&M's on-campus residents, not including apartments or the Corps of Cadets, are freshmen, said Chareny Rydl, A&M director of residence life.

The housing project will add needed capacity and is part of the reason Weber said the mandatory requirement, if implemented, is at least two years away. He said the university plans in the spring to enlist students, faculty and community leaders to further vet the idea.

The west campus housing project does not just add the capacity needed for the project, but is also part of the reason to create the requirement. Private company Balfour Beatty will finance the $200 million project instead of A&M and will recoup its costs through the rent it charges students. The university, which will retain control of room rates, assignments and programming elements, plans to use similar public-private partnerships to finance future construction. A mandatory freshman requirement would help ensure that the private company's dorm is filled, even years after the newness has worn off. "That is probably a factor," Weber said. "We're doing a public-private venture and the company is building those and … they're going to be very interested in filling those rooms. I would not say for mandatory freshman housing that that is the reason we're doing it. It is a factor, but the number one reason is student success."

Mixed opinion

Student leaders overwhelmingly said freshmen should live on campus, but weren't sold on it being required.

Student senate speaker Chris Russo said student opinion is mixed, but in this case, the majority opinion might not be the best one to follow.

"I think the freedom of people to choose where they live is a pretty fundamental human right and therefore that shouldn't be restricted, in the same way you wouldn't say people would have better health outcomes and get better grades if we made them eat healthy and had better food in the cafeteria," Russo said. "I agree the on-campus experience is a good one and is positive for students … I just think if you build it and make it a desirable thing that's cost-effective, then people will come. When you create a monopoly for first-year housing, there is nothing really from keeping the university from raising rates higher than they are."

He likened the mandatory living requirement to an ill-received change by A&M to force on-campus students to purchase meal plans from private dining provider Chartwells. The cheapest mandatory plan for on-campus students is $1,200 per year, and Russo said the on-campus requirement could place financial strain on some students. He added that students would likely be more receptive to the mandatory housing requirement if A&M scrapped the mandatory meal plan requirement.

Russo also dismissed the notion that A&M should look into mandatory freshman living because other universities have the requirement.

"I think if you're going to justify something like that, it needs to be justified on its merits, not based on what the other kids on the block are doing," Russo said.

Junior Kasey Kram, president of the residence hall association, similarly said students are weary of mandatory edicts. He said A&M provides quality on-campus living that will fill beds without any requirements.

"I've lived on campus for three years and support living on campus and I do kind of like the support of the mandatory requirement, but the thing is I think residence life fills the residence halls without it," Kram said. "I don't think it's a huge requirement now, but six years down the road will they still be able to fill it when the newness [of the west campus dorms] wears off?"

Kram said he is a huge supporter of on-campus living and touted benefits such as several niche living-learning communities at residence halls.

"I am a supporter of living on campus, I'm a supporter of students being able to grow and learn about a community that they might have not have been able to experience if they didn't come to Texas A&M and choose to live on campus," Kram said.

Student Body President Reid Joseph said he would support the mandatory freshman requirement if A&M got rid of the mandatory meal plans and ensured fair rates.

"I know at other SEC schools they have mandatory requirements for freshmen and rates can be three times as high and that's definitely not in our best interest at all," Joseph said. "I believe it does add a lot to the Texas A&M experience … It helps them get a little more immersed in our culture and helps get students plugged it."

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Texas Schools Reqiring Freshmaen to Stay in Dorms

Source: https://theeagle.com/news/local/texas-a-m-considering-mandating-that-freshmen-live-on-campus/article_835f2575-ee91-5519-b5d2-57a03e17f53f.html

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