Unraveling the Graduate Housing Problem
November 6th, 2006 | by Rob Goodspeed | Published in General College Park, On Campus Development | 9 Comments
Although less visible than the undergraduates on campus, roughly 10,000 graduate students are enrolled at the UMD College Park Campus. Housing has long been a top priority for this community since they usually must make ends meet through a meagre graduate stipend and many are independent family assistance or trying to support families themselves. Unlike a majority of peer institutions surveyed in 2003 (PDF) by the Graduate Student Government, there is no university-run housing available for these students at UMD. Many other universities set aside housing reserved for graduate students, and international student dorms and even university-sponsored family housing is common at schools like Indiana University, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Indeed, in an open letter to the Board of Regents sent this September GSG President Laura Moore and Vice President Kyle Gustafson argued that the lack of “adequate and decent housing” for graduate students could impact the quality of students, and indirectly harm the university’s ever-important academic rankings.
An exhaustive 88-page report completed for the Graduate School by the Urban Studies and Planning Program in 2003 offered three basic conclusions: there was a need for affordable and conveniently-located housing, the University should make providing this housing an “officially-declared priority” and create a action plan, and more housing information should be provided to current and incoming students. Three years later, little seems to have changed.
Roughly 5% of graduate students are able to live in two university-owned complexes managed by the Southern Management Company, Graduate Gardens and Graduate Hills. Incoming graduate students automatically receive a letter directly from SMC regarding this housing, where a 1-bedroom apartment costs $900 a month and a 2-bedroom costs $1,073 a month. The University’s contract with SMC (PDF) allows them to make mid-lease rent increases, and there is widespread dissatisfaction among residents regarding a variety of basic management issues. As an example of the types of problems experienced, over the weekend residents sent a flurry of emails over a tenants’ email list complaining that the hot water abruptly ceased to work and nobody was answering the “24-hour” maintenance hotline.
Despite university administration inaction, there has been interest in the private sector in constructing housing for graduate students, and many of the projects now being planned may eventually house graduate students. We think East Campus in particular could provide an opportunity for much-needed housing of all types.
> See the GSG webpage on housing
> This GSG website for developers contains a variety of reports
> UMD Residence Life website on graduate student housing
November 6th, 2006 at 6:54 pm (#)
What are the feelings of graduate students regarding living in the vicinity of undergraduates? Would it be acceptable to share an apartment with an undergrad? If not, what about sharing a floor? If not sharing the floor, what about sharing the building?
The developers at the Housing Forum were curious as to what living arrangements were acceptable to graduate students; considering that several developers read Rethink College Park, it would be great if graduate students could share their opinions. Don’t hesitate to comment!
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November 7th, 2006 at 11:22 am (#)
Good question, Eric. I at least wouldn’t mind living in the same building with Undergraduates. Depending on how it was designed sharing a floor might be acceptable, but at least sharing the building seems ok to me.
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November 7th, 2006 at 11:43 am (#)
Very interesting question, Eric. I think the vast majority of grad students would not feel comfortable living with undergrads for a variety of reasons. My perception is that grad students would prefer separate floors, if not separate bulidings. I’m going to delve into some huge generalizations here, so bear with me. One perception is that living with undergrads would mean being around a lot of noise and partying etc. Many of us are living with partners, and/or we have children, so many of us are looking for more family-style living.
Also our needs are very different, so our perception is that living with undergrads would entail living in undergrad-style housing (e.g. dorm-style, or multiple beds in a room, etc.). Most of us had that living situation as undergrads, and aren’t willing to do it again. Personally, I LOVED living in my crowded dorm as an undergrad, but I’m just not capable of that now.
There’s already been kind of an experiment of sorts in terms of grads living with undergrads — University View. There’s nothing preventing grad students from living there, but I think right now there’s few to none.
Recently I’ve asked various grad students how they would feel about living with undergrads, and I’ve gotten zero positive responses, and quite a few strongly negative ones.
Anyway, I really hate that this comes off as us just not liking undergrads, or just having some kind of problem with them, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. There’s just a cultural difference.
I’m very interested in what others might have to say about this. Let’s keep the discussion going!
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November 7th, 2006 at 1:47 pm (#)
My view, as a 3rd year resident of the Commons, is that you have to differentiate between dorm style housing and suite-style. I rarely if ever have had problems with my neighbors. Indeed, I can’t hear them, never have seen them, nor have I ever met them. Sure Elkton Hall can resemble Animal House, but I think everyone can agree we are talking about something different here. Now, I think that the View has a slightly different atmosphere. This is because it is composed of students outside the university’s housing priority system and has an inferior kind of rule enforcement for things like noise complaints.
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November 7th, 2006 at 9:09 pm (#)
I think it is important to note that the UMD administration is working actively to attract developers with a coordinated plan to the East Campus site. The University is the owner of a significant amount of land, and the East Campus Initiative on campus property leased to a development team could be a sparkplug for reviving Route 1. One wouldn’t say they have been at all inactive.
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January 30th, 2007 at 11:27 am (#)
I must say I have to agree with Laura. Perhaps this is because I am also thinking about family housing. Other graduate schools I applied to offered affordable graduate student housing as well as family housing for graduate students. I ultimately chose UMD because of the great program, but this decision was very hard as housing and stipend offers were much better at other institutions. To remain competitive and continue to draw the best graduate students, UMD needs to also have housing for graduate student and their partners and/or families independent of undergraduate student housing. As most graduate students are past the point of dormitories, apartments would be more attractive.
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August 23rd, 2007 at 11:13 am (#)
I relocated here from Phx, AZ to attend grad school full time. Not married, no children, but I am 41 years old and well past dorm living, even with people I like. As a non-tradtional out-of-state grad student, housing was definitely an issue for me. I have never lived in the area, and trying to secure an apartment 3,000 miles away was impossible. I opted for the waiting list at Grad Hills/Gardens, but was told that I should look for something elsewhere because the list was long and nothing would be available until Dec…maybe. Ideally, I would have preferred univ grad housing because I could have left AZ knowing that I had a place that was close to school & anything else I needed and was conducive to my studies/education. Also, I would have preferred to be around other grad students. I could live with UG if they were serious, responsible students who could live by the rules; otherwise, definitely not. I now see how silly I was at times when I was an UG 20 years ago. I was responsible/seroius, but most of my friends weren’t.
I chose UMD because of their great journalism program, but I almost chose American Univ in DC because they have grad housing; they were just too expensive. Hope UMD makes grad housing a priority.
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June 18th, 2009 at 5:43 pm (#)
The GSG website has changed some links. Most of the ones found in this blog posting can be found: http://www.gsg.umd.edu/resources/housing and http://www.gsg.umd.edu/resources/reports.
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January 26th, 2010 at 12:45 pm (#)
I have forgotten who it was but I first found out about your website from a link posted on Twitter. . I truly love the stuff I have read on your site and plan to keep reading when I get more time. Do you have a Twitter profile?
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