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Grand View students who wish to live off campus have recently ran into a bit of a roadblock. Grand View’s housing department has imposed certain restrictions that some students find unfair.

In order to live off campus a student must be 22, or have completed at least three years of college.  If they do not meet any of these criteria there are a few exceptions. For example:

• The student has attended college for at least two years and have held an off campus lease agreement
• The student is a veteran of two years active military service
• The student is married and living with their spouse.
• The student has graduated from high school three or more years ago.
• The student has dependent children living with them
• The student lives with their parents’ residence that is within a 30-mile radius of campus.

The housing restrictions have also been changed in the past year at Grand View. Previously a student only needed to live on campus for two years before being eligible for off-campus housing.

Cassidy Van Veen, a junior at Grand View, feels that the university should not have made these changes.

“I don’t think they (housing) should have changed the restrictions on moving off campus,” Van Veen Said. “With limited housing this is effecting people being able to get into the apartments their junior year.”

Robby Patterson, a director of residence life at Grand View, stressed that residence life does try to make everything as fair as possible.

“We do try to take a look at the big picture, and make things fair to everyone,” Patterson said. “We do have a lot of unique situations come up and we try to find a balance between giving grace and working with situations to bend the policy for a specific situations.”

For any student who still feels that they should be able to live where they want since they are in college it is important to remember there is always a loophole.

According to one at student a Grand View, they do not fall under any of the criteria set by residence life and have not be given grace for a unique situation. The student simply had their parents sign off that they were living with them but moved into an apartment off-campus with a roommate.

This is not encouragement to attempt to bend the rules that residence life has set. However, there are situations in which a student needs to live off campus and does not meet any of the criteria.