Every year, Georgetown students organize their housing options for the upcoming school year, and, every year, Georgetown housing, through the intellectual miracle that is the points system, sets our fate for the next year. This process is streamlined and everything turns out fine if you prepared beforehand. It’s one of the only systems that seems equally fair to everyone—unless you’re a student on financial aid.
My friend and I found ourselves in this same boat at the beginning of the school year. We snagged our groups’ members and tried to arrange it so that we would get the most housing points possible, even though we have the least points as rising seniors. We spent time agonizing over the possibility of not having on-campus housing next year and speculated over how many after-school jobs we could tack on to the ones we already have and by how much we could curtail our spending. “Maybe I could cut a meal out a day, I should lose weight anyway,” and “If I don’t take a lab then I’ll save $125, that’s utilities for a month,” we rationalized. We didn’t even tell our parents that we might not get on-campus housing the next year because we didn’t want to stress them out. And, we looked around at our more blessed colleagues enthusiastically signing leases while we fought for our educational dreams and the grades to keep the aid coming.
In 2009, 55 percent of Georgetown students received financial aid and 41 percent of undergraduates received scholarships funded by Georgetown. In many of these cases, students rely on scholarships, loans, and their independent jobs to help pay for parts or all of their schooling. They or their parents do not have the money in the bank to pay everything upfront or in installments by Georgetown’s deadline. This arrangement is fine, loans will be repaid, and scholarships are greatly appreciated.
But, trouble comes when students on financial aid don’t receive on-campus housing. These students, who formerly relied on their housing costs being covered in the same bill as the rest of their college, now have to find an alternate means of immediately paying for more of their college experience out-of-pocket. The student aid packages provided at enrollment does not cover off-campus housing. Though the FAFSA form provides a section to explain any other circumstances, like extra expenses, you would like them to consider, these requests rarely result in tangible adjustments to your aid package.
So, these students take on extra jobs and set a tighter budget. And, if they are lucky, they can scrape enough together for off-campus housing. But, their situation is still more precarious than it would have been if they had received on-campus housing. The issue begins and ends with the source of the money, not necessarily the price, even though some apartments are more expensive than campus housing, and, if Georgetown Housing has other options, they aren’t widely publicized to these students.
Everyone knows Georgetown Housing is trying to find other residential housing options, and has found some in the past. I’m not saying it would be fair for these students to have priority for the on-campus housing spots, but it’s also not fair for them to to be placed in a precarious position with broken promises just because their parents don’t both have six-figure salaries or because they live independently. Housing’s recent progress in establishing more on-campus options makes the future look brighter, but there are students in this position right now. So, perhaps Housing should make intermediate housing priorities for these students until they renovate old buildings or build new dorms.
You could tell me to “be responsible, earn more money,” but the truth is, most Georgetown students didn’t earn what they have—their parents did. It’s not a product of their sweat, it’s their parents’ life rewards. Technically, all Georgetown students stand on the same ground.
So then, why does Georgetown ignore what its insufficiencies do to students on financial aid? Housing needs to take a step back from looking at the bigger picture and find immediate salves for the here and now. New dorms will be great when they materialize. But, what about the rising seniors right now?
So, here’s an important question that isn’t answered in this piece but is pretty critical to adequately assessing the situation: how many students who actively seek and want on-campus housing for all four years don’t get it? In other words, what is the actual number – or at least percentage – of students on financial aid who find themselves “placed in a precarious position with broken promises?” And what exactly are those promises that are being broken?
Anecdotally, the one semester I lived off-campus (not counting study abroad), my rent was cheaper than on-campus housing. But obviously people’s experiences will vary on that account.