<p>Correct me if I’m mistaken (I only vaguely remember from my admission letter, and I threw it in the trash or otherwise lost it), but Brown requires students to live on campus for two years, right?</p>
<p>I’m transferring in as a sophomore, and I do not want to live on campus, under no circumstance. I was wondering if anyone had experience getting out of this requirement and the best way to go about it. Otherwise, if you could at least detail how strictly the requirement is enforced, that’d be just peachy.</p>
<p>My family actually lives about twenty minutes from Brown and I was wondering if I could, under the presumption that I would live at home due to something like financial hardship and being unable to afford the school plus housing, request to have the requirement voided (I’m receiving no financial aid).</p>
<p>It seems a little totalitarian of Brown to enforce such a silly requirement if they have no other requirements to speak of.</p>
<p>Commuting: Commuting students are students living at home with their parent or guardian (within a 30-mile or 30- minute radius) who choose to commute to the University. This is not the same as living off campus, and does not require off-campus permission. All commuting students are required to register with the University and to pay the non-resident fee.</p>
<p>It’s not all that silly of a requirement: not living on campus will greatly diminish your on-campus social experience, and it’s my strong opinion that what I’ve gotten out of my experiences with other students outside the classroom have been at least as valuable to my education as my classroom experiences.</p>
<p>Why don’t you want to live on campus? You’ll be missing so much of the Brown experience by living at home. Just suck it up for one year and then they’ll probably let you live off-campus.</p>
<p>Requiring that students live on-campus is a form of enhanced residency requirement common to many schools with sufficient housing. It helps build the campus community and it reflects an understanding that a lot of the learning in college happens outside of the classroom. I think it’s generally a good thing.</p>
<p>Re the non-resident fee: “The operating budget for the Residential Life Office includes expenses for a number of institutional activities that are not strictly speaking ‘housing related.’ However, as a residential college, these activities are for all students regardless of where they live. The operating expenses for the Haffenreffer Estate and Outing Reservations Facility, the operating budget for the Student Activities Office and the building expenses for Faunce House are all included in the Residential Life budget. In addition, a significant portion of the operating budget for the Office of Student Life is funded through the Residential Life budget. Because of this, the current non-resident fee is included in every resident student’s room fee. All students who live outside of the University Residence Halls, such as commuters, Brown Association of Cooperative Housing residents, and off-campus students have this fee posted to their bill as a separate line item. Brown University established this budgeting process over 20 years ago in order to support these important student activities and services.”</p>
<p>I do not intend to “live at home”. My parents come here maybe a week a year. </p>
<p>I’ll reiterate that I’m a transfer, and did live on campus for a year at my former college, and dorm life just isn’t my thing. I’ve also done three years of summer at various universities, during all of which I lived in a dorm, and I still disliked it.</p>
<p>I know of one freshman who got out of the on-campus housing requirement after a semester. He had family nearby, had to work to support himself, and played the financial hardship card.</p>