Around the same time of this class discussing price ceilings and price floors, I was looking for a place to live for next school year. It was becoming very difficult to find a place to live that was in my budget. Like all college students, I was willing to give up quality for a cheaper price. The cheaper places were going fast and I started to worry. My roommates and I were not able to afford to stay at our current residence because the monthly rent for next school year is going to be 125% of the current monthly rent. When hearing this, my roommates and I could not believe this increase of rent. I started to think about rent control and the possibility of setting a price ceiling on the price landlords can charge for housing off campus. While thinking about this possibility, I realized how much this would hurt the university financially. If living off campus started to get cheaper, the demand for students staying more than one year on campus would decrease. Rent control for housing off campus sounds possible at the first thought of it. But after thinking about it more and more, the possibility of it becomes more and more unlikely. In order for the university to be on board with this policy, they would need to force students to stay on campus for at least two years. This would require the building of more residence halls. Although rent control would be great, it appears like it will never happen and students will have to continue cutting costs by buying cheap beer instead.
Ryan W
TR 8:00
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If the university really cared about the students in this situation they would chose another easy route that could possibly have the same affect. It is a common consensus that off-campus housing is cheaper than staying on campus, and we all know that the University is never going to be in short supply of money. So what they could do is lower their prices to make the market more competitive which would at least make the off campus landlords fix their houses so we don't have to choose to live in houses that feel like they're going to fall apart on us.
ReplyDeleteI heard that the university was actually thinking about making it mandatory for students to live on campus for their first 2 years of school. I'm not sure if they are still trying to do this or not. I do agree with that the inflation of rent for off campus housing. Last year I lived in a house where black mold was growing in over half of the house and the basement flooded. When my roommate and I found out that our rent was going to increase by almost $100, we started to look for another place. However, the cheap ones were gone and the expensive ones were the only left. A price ceiling would be helpful for sturggling college students trying to pay their way through school.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Chad said about how University housing should lower its prices. If a price ceiling is introduced, it could make the landlords slack off even more and not care about fixing our houses. What we need is competition. If staying on campus got cheaper, more and more students would want to live in residence halls and that would drive the landlords to go ahead and make the necessary repairs.
ReplyDelete