The Full Monte: Dorm follies

Three weeks into the spring semester, we're already settled and bored. Three weeks into the fall semester, however, students are usually still squatting in a hallway waiting for their dorm room.

There are many rites of passage for the college student. All-nighters, bad sex and starving are among the worst. Dorm life, however, is the only one mandated by policy.

The State of Montana Board of Regents decrees that "all students with less than 30 earned credits reside in the residence halls," according to UM's website. It's important that a school provides housing for students who need close accommodations and meal plans, but forcing students into those buildings?  They are legal adults. They can join the army, get married and adopt a child, but God forbid they live on their own or have their own sinks.

Boarding in a dorm can be a fabulous on-campus experience. I lived in a dorm for two years when I got my first degree in California and made some of my best friends that way. I also learned, however, that six girls living in one room can shed a lot of hair.

Fortunately, the University of Montana usually houses only two students per room. Unfortunately, a double room without private facilities can cost anywhere from $3330 to $3849 a semester with a meal plan. That's about $830 to $960 a month. I now live in a two-bedroom house with a full bathroom and kitchen and pay $495 — with only my cat as a roommate. It was a good find, but I wasn't competing against freshmen for it; they're stuck in a 16-by-10-foot room.

The freshman rule is common in most universities (and luckily there are loopholes), but we're a little old for peer pressure. If the residence halls want to charge $1,000 a month for a cell without a bathroom or kitchen, more power to the profit makers! The Board of Regents, however, has no business forcing students into them — or into a hallway nearby, for that matter.

This brings us to the other dorm dilemma: The lack of facilities. Overflow forces students to camp in study lounges for weeks every fall semester without reimbursement. I know an exchange student who came to campus expecting an American adventure and was instead stuffed in Miller Hall's study lounge almost the entire term. The lounge had high traffic and did nothing to relieve his culture shock. Welcome to America, pal! Our students are homeless, and no, you will not receive a rent refund.

The administration wants to increase enrollment at the University, but doesn't provide sufficient dorm infrastructure as it is. The bottom line, however, is that students should get what they pay for or receive their money back. This is a college, and there are plenty of business textbooks with the answer: Don't sell what you don't have.

But as we've observed with parking permits, the U has yet to heed this lesson.

melissa.lacock@umontana.edu