The Student Government Association held a special session on Sept. 29 where it proposed to reintroduce a proposal that mandates on-campus living for first time in college freshmen with revised exemptions. SGA sent the proposal to committee to be voted on Oct. 1.
A one-million dollar scholarship fund would be established in order to subsidize any students who must live on campus who have financial need. These funds would be raised through advancements from donors and not through any increase in tuition and would have to be fully raised before the housing policy went into effect.
“The purpose generally is to create a scholarship that helps us: one, incentivize students to live on campus because the scholarship will only be available to students living on campus, and two, to help offset that additional cost that some students may have,” SGA President Charles Haston said.
The new proposal also states that all first time in college freshmen who live outside Harris County and counties that are directly adjacent to it must reside on-campus. Exemptions include students who live within the boundaries of Harris, Montgomery, Liberty, Chambers, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston and Waller counties, students who are married or have children and any freshmen who believe they have a reason that deems it counterproductive for them to live on campus.
“That’s a good place to start,” Haston said. “We start out with all the contiguous counties and then at some point in the next two years, you’ll go from Harris (County) and the contiguous (counties) to just Harris.”
Waivers to be exempt from the requirement would be available to students and must be submitted in writing to Student Housing and Residential Life. If the request is not heard within a reasonable amount of time, the waiver will be automatically approved.
“I’ll take this policy and propose it to the Board of Regents and say that with a policy that’s designed by students, for students, what we would like is… to have the super majority of students sitting on some type of board – and they should be paid students, receiving some type of stipend – that actually get to have a major role in deciding which students actually get to qualify for the waiver,” Haston said. “And I think that’s really important for us.”
I agree with the students.
I think any time you have to make this many exemptions to get a rule to work, it probably isn’t the best idea.
Haston is an oaf. He already made a fool of himself and the sga with this issue once. He needs to let it rest. Not everyone wants to live on campus. Has he ever stepped on the moody dorms? spoiler – they suck. I’m glad I moved out of that dump.
I think this is less about the “college life” and more about forcing thousands of dollars out of future freshman for no particular reason.
If that’s what it was about, why would the university set up a $1 million scholarship for the sole purpose of offsetting all additional expenses students incur from living on campus rather than off?