Popular educational institutions like Dartmouth College, Middlebury College are offering incentives to let students live off-campus as a large number of students apply for on-campus residence. Housing for such a large group of students is not possible as the new variants of the virus keep emerging.
Middlebury College, Vermont is offering ski passes to find takers for a satellite locale 11 miles away. Dartmouth College in New Hampshire has converted the common areas into bedrooms and is also offering incentives of $ 5,000 to students who choose to live off-campus. As per reports, the number of students who applied for on-campus facilities is such high that even after taking this initiative more than 90 students remained on the waitlist last week.
Justin Anderson, a spokesman of Dartmouth said that potential solutions like blocks of hotel space or a new modular housing do not prove to be feasible.
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As per Bloombergs report, students who were studying remotely are returning to universities and applying for housing facilities in a large number after a long gap due to the pandemic. Thus, universities are finding it hard to provide on-campus housing while maintaining COVID- 19 protocols. The report further states that universities are running out of on-campus housing for the Fall 2021 term and it is particularly a problem for elite schools that hold a global reputation.
As per the Pomona College in Southern California, it is quite difficult for them to provide both teaching and learning experience simultaneously while maintaining COVID-19 protocols as around 94% of its students live on campus for all four years. According to the dean of campus life of Pomona College, students will have to live in apartments nearby university campuses as a necessity in a semester. This number will be 50 extra students who were slated to graduate in spring 2020.
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Source:Bloomberg News
