Right now on campus, hundreds of students are bemoaning their pitiful lottery numbers and dreading the prospect of living in a closet single. However, for many students on financial aid, housing is a far more serious problem than just being condemned to a double in Haskell sophomore year. Though the Office of Financial Aid claims to redirect financial aid towards landlords instead of Residential Life for students who wish to live off campus, many students are enraged by the inability of the financial aid office to assist with housing.
Senior Sarah Widing is dismayed at the way she was treated by the Office of Financial Aid when she decided to live off campus for her junior year.
"One day sophomore year I went to the financial aid office to ask the question 'if I'm on financial aid and I need to get off campus housing, how is my financial aid package affected?'" Widing said. "I got a vague answer and a reassurance that Tufts takes into account the cost of off-campus housing."
The senior learned the hard way that financial aid could not adequately cover her basic living expenses. Although her rent is only $360 per month, Widing said that expenses pile up. "When you add up utilities and rents, it's way more expensive to live off campus - you have to pay for gas, oil, telephone, electricity, cable, Internet... and even if your rent is cheap, you end up spending over $500 a month with utilities. Other people pay a whole lot more," she said.
These extra costs, which were not successfully met by the Office of Financial Aid, put a strain on Widing.
"Last year, particularly, I felt the pinch. I lived on Ramen noodles, never went out, didn't have Internet, and never turned on the heat. I was miserable," she said. "This year I got a job - actually two. My grades have suffered a whole lot, but at least I have money to buy clothes when I need to. I can go grocery shopping each week and I go out sometimes."
Widing is not alone in her experience with financial aid and the cost of off-campus housing. Fellow senior Erika Darling was almost left without a place to live her junior year, when off-campus housing was too expensive to be met by financial aid and on-campus housing proved scarce.
"I got a really bad lottery number two years ago. I was attempting to get housing for my junior year and I got closed out of housing," she said. "ResLife urged us to find off-campus housing. However, by this time, most of the cheaper apartments were already gone and everything left was over $550 or $600 a month. And I couldn't afford to pay that."
Director of Financial Aid Bill Eastwood claims he is sympathetic to the problem of rent costs in Medford and Somerville, though.
"The bottom line is that, yes, we are sensitive to it. Yes, we know that there is more pressure because rents have gone up in the area," Eastwood said.
However, the Office of Financial Aid was not able to solve Darling's problem. The policy of the financial aid office to direct the amount of money designated for room and board to off-campus housing left Darling with an impossible situation. As a junior, she was not guaranteed on-campus housing, and was shut out of the dorms. Financial aid would not come to close to covering the costs of the only off-campus housing still on the market.
"I felt stuck. The university was telling me I couldn't live on-campus, and I couldn't afford to live off-campus," Darling said.
After many phone calls and a lot of worrying, Darling, a non-Muslim, was assigned to live in the Muslim House. She was thankful that the other residents of the house welcomed her. If the spot had not been made available, she would have been forced to live in the only off-campus housing she had found that she could afford. Darling said that the apartment was a 25-minute walk from Tufts, located on the other side of a "shady" neighborhood, and had a hole in the roof.
When it came time for senior Emma Francis to choose housing, she did a little investigating into how the Office of Financial Aid compensates for off-campus housing. Francis discovered that the financial aid for off-campus housing is actually in the form of reimbursement. The money for a down payment and for the first month's rent would have to come out of her own pocket before the Office of Financial Aid could compensate her. In the end, Francis decided that the financial strain of living off-campus was too great a burden, and she was able to secure an apartment in Hillsides for her senior year.
"I have enjoyed living on campus all four years, and have been lucky enough to do so. Hillsides is definitely the best answer for an apartment-like setting with great proximity to classes and [it is] much cheaper than off campus housing," Francis said.
All three of the students felt let down by the Office of Financial Aid when they wished to live off campus, yet the office does not seem to be taking any major steps towards reforming its system across the board. Despite the rising cost of rent in Medford and Somerville, the office does not appear to have any plans for increasing the amount of compensation given for off-campus housing, even though students like Darling may not have the opportunity to live on campus. Rather, the Office of Financial Aid chooses to evaluate off-campus housing situations on a case-by-case basis.
"Obviously, we can't have every student who moves off campus come in and say they need more money," one financial aid officer said.
Eastwood added that the budget is "adequate but limited," so it is very difficult to give additional grant aid to students who want to live off-campus.
The Office of Financial Aid encourages students to come in to talk about their individual housing dilemmas. "When push comes to shove, we haven't had that many students come in to talk to us about this problem," said Eastwood.
As another step in solving the problem, one financial aid officer recommended that students fill out their financial aid forms as early as possible so that they can receive funds more quickly, and earlier in the following semester. Eastwood also added that some students have taken out short-term loans to pay for down payments or the first month's rent on off-campus housing.
ResLife has also been constructive in beginning to solve this problem. Since Widing and Darling's housing problems, ResLife has opened an office devoted entirely to off-campus housing.
It is difficult to compare Tufts' policy with the policies of other area schools. Most schools in the area, including Harvard and MIT, are able to guarantee housing for four years. Other schools, like Boston University, are more urban than Tufts and students overwhelmingly find it easier and less expensive to live off-campus. As a result, BU does not differentiate in its financial aid packages between off-campus and on-campus housing. Boston College has higher room and board charges than Tufts, so it actually offers less compensation to students who wish to live off-campus. The school that is most comparable to Tufts in terms of off-campus housing and financial aid is Brandeis, which also does not guarantee housing for four years.
For now, though, many Tufts students must put their faith into their lottery numbers and hope that they are not left scrambling for off-campus housing that they cannot afford, even with financial aid.
