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<p>That…is what the FSILGs already do. They own houses in Cambridge or Boston. But there are only so many houses that fit 40 people to go around.</p>
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<p>Ew. I would have been distraught if I had been kicked out of my home, the place that was the center of my support system, halfway or three-quarters of the way through my MIT career. For most students, living groups aren’t just places where you sleep and park your stuff.</p>
<p>Beyond that, I would not have been happy to be kicked off <em>campus</em> either. Living on campus was part of what made MIT feel like it was mine. Obviously not everyone agrees - the people who live in Boston FSILGs, for instance, clearly feel vested in the MIT community despite not living on site - but what would be the point of shafting the people who do?</p>
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<p>Again, we need to be careful about treating the administration as a bloc on student life issues, because it very much is not.</p>
<p>Frankly, a major reason that <em>some</em> admins don’t like the housing system is that people tend to like what they’re used to. Most admins didn’t go to MIT, so they experienced a different system in college, and most worked somewhere else before MIT, so they got used to whatever the system was there.</p>
<p>Another major reason is that some of them think it would be better for future donations to build class loyalty among students. Right now, class loyalty is vastly outgunned by living group loyalty.</p>
<p>This article is more than 10 years old now, but it is still relevant (also I like it because I know so many of the people featured :)).</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/05/27/MIT.html]MIT[/url”>MIT]MIT[/url</a>]</p>