POINT: USC Housing prioritizes students who need it most

Am I the only upperclassman that isn’t mad about not getting a spot in the University Village for next year? All 2,600 spots at the University Village filled up almost immediately after the housing lottery began, causing many students to be disappointed. Upperclassmen who dreamed of living in the University Village since they were freshmen have every right to feel a bit snubbed by President C. L. Max Nikias and USC Housing, but giving priority to underclassmen is still the best way to assign housing.

Under USC’s housing system, current freshmen (rising sophomores) typically receive first priority. This generally makes the most sense, given the time that housing is decided and the fact that upperclassmen (current sophomores and juniors) likely have a better idea of off-campus housing than these current freshman students. With housing decisions made in March, this is still relatively early into freshmen’s school year.

In the March of my freshman year, I didn’t know anything about off-campus housing. I wasn’t very involved on campus yet, so most of my friends were fellow freshmen — I only personally knew a handful of people who lived in non-USC housing. If I hadn’t gotten a spot in USC housing, I would have been completely lost.

Second-semester freshmen are typically not ready to figure out the confusing world of contracts, sublets and utilities bills that make up off-campus housing. Granted, there are some older sophomores who might have started school later, and therefore would definitely be mature enough to figure out housing. However, regardless of age, anyone who has lived on campus for under a year is at a disadvantage in finding housing over someone who has lived in the area for two years or more.

USC’s current system prioritizes the students who need USC housing most. We might deserve it more as upperclassmen — we’re the ones who have been dealing with the endless University Village construction for our entire college career — but ultimately, we’ll be able to figure out our own housing situation. By the time a USC student is a rising junior or senior, they undoubtedly have some knowledge of off-campus housing, and if not, they have friends who can make recommendations or help find them a room.

In some ways, university housing also makes it easier on whoever is funding the cost of housing, whether it is the parents or students. University housing attaches the cost of housing to the student’s main bill, making it easier to apply loans or scholarships toward housing. While it would be ideal for this to be the case for all students, with a limited number of USC Housing spots, it makes sense to limit this opportunity to families who are relatively new to figuring out annual college costs.

However, the debate surrounding whether or not underclassmen should receive priority for housing merely distracts from another USC housing controversy: The decision to convert Troy Hall and Troy East into a new “Master’s Village,” designed for graduate students. This removed valuable spots that previously went to undergraduates, making it even more difficult for upperclassmen to secure spaces in USC Housing.

When plans for the University Village were initially discussed, many students were led to believe that the point of the Village would be to alleviate the demand for USC Housing from upperclassmen. USC could have achieved this either by using the UV exclusively for upperclassmen (junior and senior) housing, or by using the Village to house sophomores, opening up spaces traditionally taken by underclassmen in buildings like Troy Hall to upperclassmen. Instead, it converted these spaces into residents for graduate students, so upperclassman undergraduates are still left out.

For this, upperclassmen are right to be upset. However, blaming the system for prioritizing current freshmen ignores the larger problem, which is that USC was misleading about the intentions for the University Village and chose to increase graduate housing, instead of using the Village to leverage even more spots for undergraduates in other buildings.

As frustrating as this is, upperclassmen will be okay. We’ll all eventually find off-campus housing (which is very likely much cheaper than the Village anyway), and it will be way less stressful than dropping a current freshman into the off-campus housing hunt.

Erin Rode is a junior majoring in journalism and political science. “Point/Counterpoint” runs Wednesdays.