While comparing public and private schools before coming to college, the detail of being required to live in college housing can often be missed. Linfield requires its students to live in college housing until they are either living within 30 miles of the school with their parents, 21 years of age, married or in financial need.

Considering more than half of the student population does not live within 30 miles, and the majority of the students are entering Linfield shortly after high school, a good number of students do not qualify to live off campus. But why is it so difficult to be allowed off campus?

At public schools, such as Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, the school does not require its students to live on campus even during their first year, as do many other schools. This leads one to question why Linfield restricts this liberty that is given to students at other institutions.

Although public schools do not require first-year students to live on campus, there are benefits to living in college housing for the first year of college.

For instance, students are able to make new friends and make an easy transition. In making new friends, freshmen are able to create a comfortable environment to make any adjustments they might need to make with the help of trained staff.

Another plus to living on campus is that students are then closer to their classes.

After the first year of college, the decision of where you’d like to live should include living off-campus.

College is all about independence and growing up; forcing students to live on campus clashes violently with the liberty that is supposed to come with adulthood and higher education.

Other colleges that require this are private schools a lot like Linfield, such as Pacific University, Willamette University and the University of Puget Sound.

While looking at the schools that often require this, one would think that a student’s desire to make their college experience more affordable would be enough of a reason to be allowed to live off-campus.

When someone wants to go through the process of being approved to move off-campus, the process is tiresome. There are so many people you have to see if you don’t meet any of the requirements.

Students can be sent to many places for information, such as financial aid, residence’s life or student affairs. It’s like being told to jump through a bunch of hoops; it shouldn’t have to be that difficult.

Living off-campus can help a student realize what it’s actually like to take on the responsibilities of being an adult on your own. It creates a turning point in life where students can make the transition from being a teenager to being an independent adult.

While the incentive for the college to fill its coffers with bloated housing fees is obvious, the potential benefits to the student should also be taken into consideration.

While there are many positive reasons to living on-campus, there are also reasons to live off-campus. Let the students decide where they’d like to live in this new chapter of their lives.

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Kaylyn Peterson/Sports editor
Kaylyn can be reached at [email protected]