[Vision2020] UI Considers Making Freshmen Live on Campus

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Wednesday 19 August 2009 15:30:56 Tom Hansen wrote:
> MOSCOW, Idaho — The University of Idaho is pitching a plan that would
> require most of its first-year students to live on campus.
>
> Administrators at the Moscow campus say the move would bolster residency
> hall occupation and generate additional $700,000 in revenue for housing
> and dining services.
>
> But more importantly, they say, the policy shift could boost retention
> rates for first-year students. A 2008 study by the university found that
> 88 percent of students who lived in residence halls or the Greek system
> returned for their second year, while only 58 percent of new students who
> lived off campus returned for their sophomore year.
>
> New President Duane Nellis has approved the policy and other steps being
> considered by the university to improve first-year retention rates.

As usual, the bottom line is about monetary expectations. The current 
administration appears more pessimistic, among other things, than the Hartung 
administration 35 years or so ago when it was decided that, as long as the 
residence halls were full enough to service the bond debt for the Theophilus 
Tower, freshmen could live off-campus if they chose to do so.

Economic prospects for new graduates were not so wonderful in those days, 
either, as they had been for graduates recently before them. The U.S. economy 
was in recession from 1973 to 1975, so maybe there are now some aspects of 
deja vu all over again.


Ken