When will some sort of housing equity come to students? I guess as long as “cities” are populated exclusively by rich kids living on the monthly monetary contributions of daddy – powerful executives, lawyers, judges, politicians and old money, we shouldn’t rationally believe housing prices would be fair.
Where did all these rich, snotty, immature children come from? Why is it that when I walk through the campus parking lots, most cars cost more than my entire four-year education? How come I’m wearing $15 jeans when an increasing number of students have $300 North Face jackets and $115 Armani Exchange designer denim? At any number of private schools, I’d understand, but is it OK the majority of students at the university outrank my family in average income by huge amounts? I thought public universities were to educate all of us, poor, middle-income and wealthy.
This problem becomes increasingly obvious when you open the paper or log onto www.craigslist.org and are blown away by rent prices in the area. Sure, bring in the high-price developers, jack up the rent and tell the average-income students (quickly becoming the minority, as more rich kids take up space at our public university [theoretically an equitable source of education]) … SORRY, these people just have more money! No, you’re not going to be able to live close to the university. You’re going to have to own a car, buy a parking permit, take the bus for 20 minutes or ride your bike in the freezing cold, you poor schmuck. If only you (or daddy) had more money or didn’t care about your debt situation, then we could accommodate you.
I’m sorry, but I don’t consider $1,200, $1,000 or even $500 a reasonable price for an individual student to pay for rent ANYWHERE, whether it be next to the campus or two miles away. My parents told me when I moved out to try to budget so that rent costs are no more than a fourth to a third of my income. If you haven’t heard this, I’m sorry, but it is common wisdom. I’m a student. How can I make $2,000 a month, which works out to be $24,000 a year? I’m lucky if I can make $10,000 annually, loans included.
Personally, I don’t care for luxury apartments with expensive bathroom fixtures, recessed lighting and custom paint jobs. I don’t need marble tile in the bathroom, garbage disposals, dishwashers, center island stoves or cable TV. Give me a bedroom that is warm, a shower that is hot and a stove that works. I can wait until I’m out of school and make a decent living for those staples. Instead, I’m forced to take out loans to pay for things I DON’T WANT AND CANNOT AFFORD. “But don’t you want a nice place to live?” say the developers, tempting us, putting us into the hypnotic trance of material lust. What quantifies as a nice place to live is up to me. At this point in my life, a nice place to live is efficient, quiet and utilitarian. Most importantly, a nice place to live is CHEAP.
This is going to sound crazy, but there are places in the world where students’ rent is PAID FOR. Gasp! Well, free-market economics would go down the drain, landlords would take advantage of the government, and the apartment prices would skyrocket! I love what free-market economics have done here in College Park. You would be fortunate to find a place for under $550 that has both heat (that actually warms the house) AND hot water that lasts longer than five minutes. Don’t get me wrong, they do exist, but there aren’t plenty of them. There needs to be hundreds of these places, not a handful, and within a reasonable distance from the campus.
My proposal? I wish I had one that I knew would work. As long as students continue to accept the status quo, there will be no change. The university officials must be … gulp … lobbied to take affordable housing seriously, especially when they can’t even provide housing for the new batch of students they bring in each year. The students who represent the legitimately worst off should be responsible for setting the ceiling for affordable housing, then the city needs to get involved in a revolutionary way. I’m not a politician, but I am a philosopher, and I know injustice when I see it.
Brandon Blische is a senior philosophy and public health major. He can be reached at bblische@umd.edu.
