In a few weeks, the housing lottery will bring nervous upperclassmen to the brink of obsession—leaving them poring over floor plans, holding awkward negotiations with friends, and triple-checking the Office of Student Housing web site, looking for a loophole that will get them one step closer to the Brown House.
But there’s one loophole that everyone knows about: the Interhall housing raffle. The raffle auctions off single rooms, apartments, and one townhouse for $2 a ticket. That comes to $12 per housing area if you buy six, the maximum number of tickets per person. $96 if you buy six tickets for each of the eight lotteries. $288 if potential roommates pitch in too.
The price of a competitive chance in the lottery quickly becomes prohibitive for students without nearly one hundred dollars to spend on tickets. The Interhall housing raffle offers advantages to privileged students, and should be ended.
Even residence hall organizations at other universities wink at the Interhall raffle’s outrageous nature. On the National Association of College University Residence Halls’ web site, an article about Georgetown’s lottery is called “How to Make Thousands in Days”—language that seems more appropriate for a scam e-mail than for describing a university.
Unfortunately, ending the raffle will create new problems. Interhall gets a significant portion of its money from semesterly raffles, according to Chris Butterfield (MSB ‘12), Interhall’s Vice President of Finances. Their only other source of revenue is a third, smaller fundraiser in the middle of the year. Interhall receives no money from the University.
While it’s unfortunate that Georgetown doesn’t support Interhall financially, that does not excuse the raffle’s bias toward wealthier students. No other campus group is allowed to be so classist. The Athletic Department does not let rich students buy better student seats, nor does Rangila allow students to buy higher-priced tickets to avoid its infamous lines, even though both ideas would make more money for the organizations. Why, then, does Interhall feel comfortable monetizing one of the most important parts of student life?
Instead of tying a student’s housing placement to the size of his or her parent’s bank account, Interhall should take the steps to apply for University funding through the Student Activites Commission or another funding organization. Through co-sponsorships of events and other programs, Interhall affects students enough to deserve University funding. If Interhall had another source of revenue, perhaps they would realistically be able to end the housing raffle without compromising their funding.
