Dive Brief:
- Colleges are more often examining how students are assigned to dorms, including Duke University, which will restrict incoming freshmen starting this fall from choosing roommates after finding that 46% of students — mostly from higher-income families — were making choices and typically paring up with people like themselves, according to The Washington Post.
- Other universities have found a similar trend, including the University of Maryland, where students use a roommate-selecting service called RoomSync and about 30 percent choose their roommates. At the University of Chicago about 20 percent of freshmen choose who is in their room and more than half at the University of Virginia. Students use Facebook or college matchmaking apps — or meetings for accepted students — to find roommates.
- Princeton University also is among the institutions that restricts student housing choice. Officials there meet to decide where students are assigned.
Dive Insight
A group of Duke students also have called for the university also to consider a variety of models in housing beyond the first year, spelling out the options and the theory behind each, including one where students’ housing is planned throughout their time at the university, one where an algorithm makes the choice and one where students are assigned randomly. Some students move into selective housing, but another 60% enter a lottery, the group of students said, and in the end only 56% of graduating seniors agree that campus housing “provided a sense of community and belonging."
There is some research suggesting bi-racial dorm room student pairings result in more cultural awareness or connections between diverse students, but several researchers also have found there is minimal socialization from such efforts and in some cases they have inflamed conflict.
Officials at Onondaga Community College claim that grouping learners with similar majors in dormitory space has boosted retention and reduced conflict, attributing a 30% rise in enrollment in part due to the change. Colorado State University, among others, have experimented with a similar approach, but some are concerned about conflicts with students championing inclusion or compliance with Title IX law.
Students and university officials at the University of Maryland and Cornell University have met to address issues of diversity and inclusion in housing. At Cornell, the head of student and campus life said perceived inequity in housing was caused by “power differentials” among those who control housing.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been met with criticism for closing a dorm with a tradition for housing underrepresented minority groups, citing data showing that only about 60% of students housed there freshman year graduated in four years, while campus wide the rate was 84%. Critics of the move said the data was poorly conceived.