This past fall I spent six months studying abroad in Santiago, Chile. I lived with a Chilean host family, and was enrolled at a large private university in the city, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Once I adjusted to the shock of being constantly immersed in the Spanish language, I began to notice other cultural, rather than linguistic, differences between the U.S. and Chile. One difference that became jarringly clear was the fact that the university I was attending had no residential housing. Every building was either for academic, athletic, or dining purposes. Upon making this realization I questioned my host mom, Mary, as to why PUC didn’t provide housing, on-campus or otherwise. Mary, usually quick to answer any questions I had, paused, gave me a perplexed look, and responded, “Why would they?”
And so, I found out that residential housing is simply not offered by the majority of Chilean universities. Most students live at home during university and commute to campus daily. Those who end up attending universities far from home, a small minority, have to rent apartments near their university. Coming from Carleton, where some 75 students are permitted to live off-campus each year, the lack of college-provided housing was genuinely surprising to me. In many ways, however, it made sense. Living and eating at home is a lot cheaper than paying for room and board. Moreover, if the goal of college is to receive an education, why does that require anyone to live on-campus? By the end of my time in Chile, I found myself questioning the logic of the very system I had grew to love during my first two years at Carleton.
Nevertheless, there were certain aspects of the Chilean system that left me thoroughly relieved to be living on-campus this January when I returned to Carleton. Primary among them was the issue of commute time. Santiago is a large city, and my homestay was fairly far from my university. So, each morning I faced a three part commute: first a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, then a 15 minute wait/bus ride to the nearest metro station, and finally a 35 minute subway ride to campus. Time is money, and the opportunity cost (not to mention the actual cost of bus and metro tickets) of the two hours I spent commuting everyday was huge. Comparatively, the longest distance between two buildings at Carleton (the Weitz Center and the Rec Center) can be traversed, on foot, in less than 20 minutes.
Furthermore the American understanding of a college education tends to be more expansive than simply academic. There are certain lessons and experiences that a non-residential college can’t begin to offer. These experiences, many of which have to do with learning to live away from home, are hard to put a price on. Surely though, the cost of room and board at a university is worth the included benefit of gaining a sense of independence.
That is an interesting perspective, but I question if education is Carleton’s motive for keeping students on campus. From what I have heard from seniors, living off campus and off board are significantly cheaper than the Carleton housing. This makes total sense for Carleton, as keeping students on campus generates additional revenue. Additionally, since many colleges in the America offer extensive housing programs and they are often similar in cost, we can assume that housing costs are not too important a factor in college decisions. Therefore college housing is a form of competitive monopoly, since colleges are the price givers and act in unison to maintain high prices, and students often have inelastic demand (or are forced to live on campus). However, this might not be a bad thing, as it allows Carleton to hire better teachers, offer more financial aid, or invest in larger projects.
This is not only true in Chile. It also surprised me when I traveled abroad to Madrid, Spain. This is why when I used to try to explain to my host family that I lived nearly a thousand miles from my college, they found it so difficult to believe that I would travel so far away for college. Even the Spanish LA this year (who studies in Madrid) found the residential Carleton campus to be adjustment from what he was used to in Spain. That being said, you touched on an important aspect that so much of American college culture comes from living close to one another. I think that is what gives residential colleges like Carleton great reputations for having close-knit communities.
I think another reason residential campuses are so prominent in the U.S. is that there is so much competition between schools to attract students from around the nation and world. If one school did not provide housing, that would be a disadvantage that would hurt the school in this monopolistic competitive market. Not providing housing would cause demand for that school to decrease because people from far away might no longer see that school as a feasible option. In other countries, while there are many universities, there is less competition to attract the same students as there is in the U.S. since people generally stay close to home anyways.