2008 Woodie Awards
Student practices addition
Jeremy Sherby
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Opinion
After reading "Tuition, housing rates rise for '08-09" in last week's Trinitonian, I was pretty confused by Residential Life's calculations claiming that on-campus costs are less than off-campus. Given that every off-campus person I've talked to says that it is cheaper than living in the dorms, I decided to get to the bottom of this discrepancy, by adding up living expenses step-by-step myself.
Say I want to live in a two-bedroom apartment at Rosemont. The most expensive two-bed-room/two-bathroom apartment there is $1,115 per month.
Power and water is about $150 per month (the most expensive month a friend of mine paid in this same size apartment).
And even though I've now had two years of a Trinity education, I still can't figure out how to order cable television packages, so for simplicity I picked a bundle that gives you about 280 channels with movies On Demand (on campus, we get about 80 channels), cable internet and unlimited local calling (Do any of us actually use a land line anymore?) from Time Warner. That costs a whopping $89.95.
So, rent. Check. Power and water. Check. Entertainment and take-out ordering device. Check. All this costs $677.48 per month per person if you have two people living in the apartment, not including food. And for 10 months, this totals $6,774.75 per person.
Hmm… Dean Tuttle said that Residential Life's spreadsheet had this double occupancy apartment at Rosemont costing $9,583 for 10 months. What did I miss to be short $2,808.25 in expenses? I guess that's a lot of food and beverage.
By the way, what is with this 10-month thing? According to my Trinity-provided Student Handbook, the first day that residence halls fully opened was August 17 (for first years). They will fully close May 18 (for graduating seniors).
I'm pretty sure that is 9 months and 1 day. That's not counting the roughly four weeks that the dorms are closed over Christmas and we can't live in them. I don't think off-campus apartments tell you that you can't live in your own room over winter break. So since you only live there for 9 months, that makes it only $6,097.32.
Now I'm even more confused.
Dean Tuttle and all other Residential Life staff, please enlighten my fellow students and myself as to how your calculations find living off campus at Rosemont more expensive than living on campus.
Say I want to live in a two-bedroom apartment at Rosemont. The most expensive two-bed-room/two-bathroom apartment there is $1,115 per month.
Power and water is about $150 per month (the most expensive month a friend of mine paid in this same size apartment).
And even though I've now had two years of a Trinity education, I still can't figure out how to order cable television packages, so for simplicity I picked a bundle that gives you about 280 channels with movies On Demand (on campus, we get about 80 channels), cable internet and unlimited local calling (Do any of us actually use a land line anymore?) from Time Warner. That costs a whopping $89.95.
So, rent. Check. Power and water. Check. Entertainment and take-out ordering device. Check. All this costs $677.48 per month per person if you have two people living in the apartment, not including food. And for 10 months, this totals $6,774.75 per person.
Hmm… Dean Tuttle said that Residential Life's spreadsheet had this double occupancy apartment at Rosemont costing $9,583 for 10 months. What did I miss to be short $2,808.25 in expenses? I guess that's a lot of food and beverage.
By the way, what is with this 10-month thing? According to my Trinity-provided Student Handbook, the first day that residence halls fully opened was August 17 (for first years). They will fully close May 18 (for graduating seniors).
I'm pretty sure that is 9 months and 1 day. That's not counting the roughly four weeks that the dorms are closed over Christmas and we can't live in them. I don't think off-campus apartments tell you that you can't live in your own room over winter break. So since you only live there for 9 months, that makes it only $6,097.32.
Now I'm even more confused.
Dean Tuttle and all other Residential Life staff, please enlighten my fellow students and myself as to how your calculations find living off campus at Rosemont more expensive than living on campus.
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