Dorm vs. Apartment: The Great Debate

Print story by Parth Majmudar

Some consider living in a college dormitory to be a rite of passage, a time-honored tradition which serves as a sort of way station between childhood and adult life. However, for the past couple of years, many students at UNC-Chapel Hill have been electing to spend only the one university-required year on campus before jumping to a nearby house or apartment. This change in housing trends has school officials concerned that on-campus living might no longer be the most appealing option for students.

Fueling this exodus has been a significant increase in the amount of luxury housing in the areas surrounding UNC. Several high-end apartment complexes have opened for business within the past decade, including The Warehouse, Lux, and Shortbread Lofts. According to Rick Bradley, UNC’s Associate Director of Housing and Residential Education, the newest establishments tend to fill up first, leaving older ones such as Warehouse, which are still relatively new, with up to 25% vacancies. Bradley says there is an extremely oversaturated market for student housing in the area. He has spoken to local property managers who are having trouble filling homes, likely as a direct result of competition with high-rise apartments.

In 2013, UNC’s on-campus dorms and apartments housed 8,613 students. Only two years later, in 2015, the number had dropped to 8,100, representing a decline of 6%. Bradley says the Department of Housing typically retains about 70% of freshmen, but that is now down to 62%, which is a concern. Bradley says there’s no set number the university is hoping to maintain, but rather officials hope to better understand the needs of students and do their best to meet them, whatever that might entail.

Surveys conducted by the Department of Housing found that one of the most important factors in students choosing to move off-campus is the ease of access to a kitchen. As students get older, their reliance on a meal plan wanes and the lower cost of cooking meals becomes desirable. Most residence halls have only one kitchen per floor, leading many students to share a small cooking space. In addition, this area might be poorly maintained. Alex Ludwig, a rising sophomore, notes this as a motivation for his decision to move off-campus. He says, “sometimes I’ll turn on a burner and it’ll start smoking before I’ve even done anything.”

To help combat the off-campus exodus, Bradley says there are preliminary plans to add a gourmet kitchen to at least one of the dorms on North Campus. He envisions a large area with island seating, couches, and tables where students can cook and invite friends over for a meal. This space could even include televisions and other amenities and become an extended lounge. In addition, he says the Department of Housing has discussed getting rid of some rooms to make kitchens more spacious.

Another major motivator for students to move off-campus is an increase in independence. While freshmen might initially be thrilled with their newfound freedom when compared to high school, as the year goes on, limitations become evident. Dining hall food becomes repetitive, RAs impose restrictions, and roommates affect privacy. When deciding to leave on-campus housing, the liberty to personalize her own space and have her own room was a huge plus for Kelsey Bhasker, a junior living at Lux who plans to stay there another year. She deemed dorm rooms too small for two people, saying, “sharing a room with somebody else was not the greatest, just because it’s hard to fit all of our things in.”

Another advantage to living in Lux for Bhasker was the ability to pick and choose her roommates and avoid having to seek out a random suitemate. On-campus, students can choose their roommates and suitemates, but if they’re unable to fill the suite with friends, they have to fill it somehow. Also, there’s no way to control who else might live on the same hall, adding some level of uncertainty. In response to this, Bradley says the Department of Housing has been increasing the number of single occupancy rooms available in residence halls, especially those on North Campus. While this means these buildings can house fewer students, it’s a very appealing situation for those who crave privacy in order to study in their own rooms or host friends. Bradley says a lower total occupancy potential is worth the tradeoff for more satisfied residents.

For most, the greatest benefit to living on-campus is the convenience of being so close to academic buildings. However, Bhasker points out that Lux has a shuttle service that runs throughout the day to make this less important for her. On top of this, she no longer has to go up and down stairs to do her laundry or leave her personal living space to get to a kitchen. To her, these conveniences outweigh being close to her classes.

A huge consideration for many students when choosing where to live is the cost. Living in a dorm can seem very expensive, especially when residents often have to share a room. However, Bradley suggests that the high cost of on-campus housing is more perception than reality. He says students often fail to take into consideration the many other costs of living off-campus. These include utilities, internet, and maintenance, all of which are included in the cost of a dorm room. In addition, living off-campus also often leads students to buy cars, which adds another cost. Essentially, he says, off-campus housing is sometimes simply masquerading as the cheaper option.

In Bradley’s opinion, another force driving students to live in luxury high-rises is the timing of when students have to make housing decisions. These properties often have filled up all of their units for the next year within two months of the start of the academic year. Advertisements for places like Level 51 Ten and Chapel Ridge bombard students from the first day of classes, offering incentives to sign a lease for the following year. Bradley says students are “immediately faced with the challenge of, ‘if you want to live in Lux, you have to decide now or we’re gonna be full.’” He says this does a disservice to younger students who have been in college for only four or five weeks and already have to make a decision about whether they stay on-campus or not.

For some, however, that decision is easy. Tim Wahl is a senior who has lived on-campus for all four years he’s been in college, including the past two in Teague. For him, the convenience of living within a few minutes walk from his classes and the libraries was enough to outweigh any other incentives to move away. According to Wahl, “being able to stay later in libraries and walk back a short distance to where I live is beneficial.” Because he prefers to study at the library, he says other amenities and living comforts are less important to him than they might be for others. He just wants the closest place he can get to sleep at night.

Wahl also views the kitchen problem in a different light than many of his peers. He has no need for a larger kitchen space because he loves having a meal plan. The ease of not having to prepare his own food or do his own dishes is worth the extra cost to him because it gives him time to focus on other things. After graduation he plans to move into a house and learn how to cook, but for now, the dining halls will do just fine.

Wahl does, however, recognize the drawbacks of living in a dorm. He mentions that Teague has no laundry machines of its own, and he has to go to neighboring Parker or Carmichael to wash his clothes. He also laments that Teague has no central air conditioning, but rather outdated window units. He finds the lounges dingy and says, “there’s definitely some upkeep than can be done.”

Bradley is well aware of this and the Department of Housing is doing its best to address it. Many of the dorms of the upper and lower quad have gone years without any sort of changes, and while there simply isn’t enough funding for a major renovation such as happened in Morrison or Cobb, some upgrades are in the works. These include new flooring and modernizing the bathrooms, which Bradley hopes will help the dorms keep up with off-campus options.

To stay ahead of the curve, Bradley and the Department of Housing have a few new ideas. One is a new pricing model that allows students to lock in a rate for on-campus housing for multiple years, protecting them from cost increases. This has been implemented at other universities to mixed results. Another plan that Bradley thinks is likely to happen is aesthetically updating the interior of dorms. This would include new furniture and decorations. Bradley hopes to feature the UNC brand more prominently in the residence halls to make them “look more like Carolina.”

Bradley emphasizes that while the two-year dip in housing enrollment is a concern, it’s not a crisis. Rather, the measures the Department of Housing is taking to improve residence halls are simply to give students a better on-campus housing experience.