With tuition rising and the economy still recovering from recent recessions, many students are considering off-campus housing options to save some cash and gain some freedom. Ashland University’s Office of Residence Life continues to uphold the board-established policy of keeping AU a four-year residential campus.

As a residential campus, all non-commuter students are required to live on campus unless they meet specific criteria, such as being 22 years old before Sept. 1 or being married. Many students argue that these rules are unfair, but Cat Geletka, the director of residence life, said the policy is typical.

“It’s not abnormal for a liberal arts school of our size to be a residential school,” Geletka said.

Regardless of the reasons behind the rules, many students disagree with them and some have tried to find ways to get around the rules.

One option students often consider is paying for a room on campus but choosing to actually live somewhere else. Since Res. Life can’t physically force students to stay in a dorm room, the policy only requires students to pay for and be assigned a dorm room.

Senior Frank Suglio went with this option the summer after his sophomore year. Since then, he has lived in a house near campus with two other friends.

Suglio cited a variety of reasons for wanting to live off campus, including his age, financial concerns and the need to stay on campus for football training during the summer.

“I’m 21, so I felt like it was kind of stupid to live in a dorm,” Suglio said.

He turned 22 eight days after the deadline.

Other students try to avoid the double fee by lying to the school about their real address and claiming to be commuters who live with their parents or guardians. According to AU’s housing policy, however, students who are caught must pay for a dorm room anyway.

This is what happened to Kent Rodhe, Ben Wheeler and Garrett Wienecke, three seniors who moved into a house off campus and told the school they were commuting this year. They were discovered, however, and were forced to pay for dorm rooms in November.

“It’s not like we were having big parties or anything,” Wheeler said. “We’d never had the cops at our house, so it was surprising.”

They have had the police called to their house since then, though.

Rodhe added that they began hosting parties more often after the school discovered they were living off campus and charged them for dorm rooms because they were no longer afraid of getting caught. The police were called one night when several party guests got into a fight in front of their house, according to Wienecke, and a judiciary action was taken against them by the school for causing an off-campus disturbance.

Students get caught living off campus in violation of the housing policy two to three times per year, according to Geletka.

“It gets ugly,” she said.

Some students feel it doesn’t make sense to require people who live off-campus to pay for a dorm room that the school knows they won’t be using when that room could be used for someone else.

“It’s stupid because this year there were people living in lobbies, young guys,” Suglio said. “It makes sense to let people move off who are willing to make space for others.”

Neither Rodhe, Wheeler nor Wienecke has a key to his official dorm room, and Rodhe and Wienecke said they weren’t even sure what building they are supposed to live in. Suglio said he knows where his official dorm is, but he doesn’t have a key.

Wienecke said he thinks the policy is primarily in place to help the school make money from housing.

“It’s not accent on the individual, it’s accent on your parents’ wallet,” he said.

The fact that students pay for a room they’re not using isn’t a secret among the student population or in the Residence Life office. Geletka said she knows students don’t think this makes sense, and she agrees.

“I think it’s silly, too,” she said. “They’re telling me that they can’t afford to live on campus but they’re paying for two places.”

Some students choose to cope with the cost of living in both places whether they can afford it or not.

Rodhe said he and his roommates knew they were taking a risk when they moved off campus and Wienecke said he didn’t think it was unfair for the school to charge them for a room since that’s what the rules state.

Suglio said he took out an additional student loan to pay for the room on campus.

“It would have been nice having a little bit of savings,” Suglio said, but living off campus is worth it.

Juniors Justine Ackerman and Evan Frank also hoped to save money by living off campus their senior year but, in the end, chose to pay for both dorm rooms and a house. Ackerman is the senior reporter for the Collegian.

Ackerman said she and Frank wanted to live off campus because they’re engaged, both will be 21 years old and Frank is a full-time detention officer at Ashland County Juvenile Detention Center.

“It’s frustrating because we’re trying to be smart,” Ackerman said. “If we live off campus, that reduces the amount of loans that we have to take. It’s kind of like you’re discouraged from being fiscally responsible.”

“I love going to this school,” she added. “I love the campus, I love the faculty, I love the facilities. It’s not that I don’t want to give Ashland money. It’s that I want to give them money when it seems like the appropriate and smart thing to do.”

Geletka acknowledged the rumor that athletes are given special preference when it comes to bending the off-campus housing rules, but she said it’s simply not true. Although a number of student athletes do live off campus, Geletka said that they are also paying for both a dorm room and their off-campus housing. Many of them are able to afford the double cost due to athletic scholarships that cover housing.

Despite the assumption that exceptions are frequently made for students who want to live off campus, Geletka said Res. Life makes an exception for about one percent of the senior population.

The only exceptions are for medical reasons (which require documentation from a doctor) or the need to complete something that meets an academic requirement for graduation, such as internship or student teaching opportunity.

A committee of various AU administrators reviews each case when considering individual exceptions.

“It’s a thorough process,” Geletka said.

According to Geletka, 11 students who don’t meet the criteria have requested permission to live off campus next year. Geletka said she sympathizes with these students but there are practical reasons that not every student who wants to live off campus can.

“I empathize with students and their financial needs, and I understand there are things they can’t control,” she said. “[But] the reality is that some people just cannot afford to be here.”

According to Geletka, the average amount of debt students incur by graduation is $44,000. Geletka said she understands that tuition, room and board are expensive but that exceptions cannot be made for everyone.

“Let’s say we were to allow all of our seniors to live off campus,” Geletka said. “Where would they go? It’s a difficult thing for a community to be able to sustain. We don’t have a strip of houses.”

Geletka said that schools in bigger cities can more easily accommodate a housing policy that allows students to live off-campus than schools in a smaller community like Ashland.

Although off-campus houses often have a reputation for being “party houses,” several students said it’s not just about partying or being free from AU rules.

“Living on your own teaches you a lot,” Suglio said. “It matures you. We take care of the house really well.”

Suglio works to pay all of his own bills and living expenses. His grades even improved after moving off campus, he said, because he finds it easier to study away from the noise and chaos of the dorms.

Rodhe agreed that living off campus can teach students a lot.

“I think it’s kind of silly that people can graduate from here at 21, 22 years old and have never had any experience paying the gas bill,” he said. “You get out and all of a sudden you’re on your own and you don’t know how to do anything.”

His roommate Wheeler agreed that moving off campus can help students transition from college life to living on their own.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot living off by myself,” Wheeler said. “When it comes to the end of the year, I won’t be moving home. I have a job and I pay for everything I own.”

For now, the housing policy will remain the same, but many students feel it should be changed.

Most of the students interviewed said they believe the age should be lowered from 22 to 21.

“I agree with [requiring] freshmen and sophomores to live in dorms,” Suglio said. “It’s good for you, and it’s fun.”

But he added that the policy doesn’t make sense for upperclassmen.

“You force someone to live in a dorm and make them eat in Convo, but you’re not going to have Convo or your mom making dinner for you the rest of your life,” Suglio said.

The official requirements for being allowed to live off campus at AU are: being 22 years old before Sept.1, having a baccalaureate degree from a four-year college or university, having served and been honorably discharged from the Armed Forces, or being married, divorced, or widowed. Students can be commuters who live with their parents or guardians if their house is within 35 driving miles of main campus.

“This is such a disputed policy,” Geletka said. “A lot of people will say to me that no other schools have this policy, but they do.”

The University of Mount Union’s policy is nearly identical, with the only difference being an additional 10 miles for commuters. Oberlin College & Conservatory has a similar policy but also allows students who have completed six semesters or who are part of a domestic partnership to live off campus.

The College of Wooster is also a residential campus but makes exceptions for students who wish to commute from the “local community, students who have a medical condition requiring off campus living facilities [and] students who are non-traditionally aged and are living with a spouse or children in the local community,” according to a housing brochure on their website.

AU’s off-campus housing policy was a Board of Trustees decision.

“This policy isn’t a Residence Life policy, which I think is important to note,” Geletka said. “At the end of the day, it’s a cab policy, so we honor that policy.”

Students who wish to apply for permission to live off campus can contact the Office of Residence Life for an application.