The three-year on-campus housing requirement is part of Trinity’s identity. It’s often the first thing people comment on when I describe life on campus, and, frankly, it’s the bane of my undergraduate existence. Though I am not the first to complain, and certainly will not be the last, I truly dislike the housing requirement. While this fight has been taken up before, I think it’s time we revisit why Trinity continues the residency requirement and dive deep into why, year after year, students like me always seem to disagree.

A subheading on Trinity’s residential-life webpage reads “Why Three Years?” Perhaps if we take a closer look at the six reasons listed here, we can better understand the motivations behind and implications of the much-debated housing requirement.

“1. Active Members — When a student chooses Trinity University, they choose to be active members of the Trinity University community.”

Sure, that’s fair. Community building requires the development of close connections and a shared sense of belonging. However, I’m not entirely sold. At a school of 2,500, it feels almost impossible not to get wrapped up in the Trinity bubble. The people I eat dinner with are the same people I go to class with, do my laundry next to and run into at parties.

The size of our school, almost half that of my 6A Texas high school, naturally renders the community tighter than most. When I speak to my Texas State or University of Texas at Austin friends, they can barely wrap their heads around the fact that I know around 25% of our student body by name. It’s unusual and a product of our small school population. We don’t need to live with each other, the same people, mind you, for three separate years. I promise we are far too close.

“2. Diverse Community — Trinity students enjoy a diverse community, where roommates and others have various viewpoints, goals and styles, preparing them for future relationships in a shrinking world, in careers and in personal relationships.”

This point is less convincing. First of all, students choose their roommates. Let’s be honest here — first-year students seek out those with similar interests and views, and upperclassmen room with their friends, who are also likely to hold similar interests and views.

Second, it seems unfaithful to posit this point when, just this past year, the university renamed the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office to Student Inclusion and Belonging. As universities shy away from all things DEI, courtesy of pressures from the Trump administration, their commitment to diversity in the first place feels half-hearted. Slapping on diversity as a reason to require three years of on-campus housing is performative at best.

“3. Learning Outside of the Classroom — Trinity students learn outside of the classroom — to be independent, to develop healthy relationships, to experiment with who they are — all in a safe environment.”

This, too, feels disingenuous. I find it hard to believe that requiring students to live in on-campus dorms promotes learning outside of the classroom more than renting an off-campus apartment or house. While one forces us to buy a meal plan, pay for housing through university systems and remain in suite-style living with biweekly cleaning services, the other encourages us to grocery shop and cook for ourselves, be responsible for rent and utility payments and adapt to living in and taking care of a rented space.

As the vast majority of young adults will live independently in their own homes, this point on learning outside the classroom falls short. There is nothing to be learned from dorm living that could not be better taught from off-campus house or apartment living.

“4. Understanding Responsibility — Trinity students learn that they have responsibilities as members of a larger community.”

Not only does my point on renting apartments or houses still stand — instilling far more responsibility than dorm housing — but this justification runs contrary to students’ lived experiences. Just within the past academic year, reports of housing issues have demonstrated consistent problems with student treatment and university upkeep of residential areas.

Consider the Bruce Thomas Hall laundry room fire, poor sanitation, sewage leaks and bike thefts — it seems efforts to teach responsibilities as members of a greater community have largely failed. Alternatively, accountability to a landlord, someone with greater authority than university administration, who will readily kick residents out or file legal actions against them, better encourages responsibility to a larger community.

“5. Supportive Environment — Trinity students are surrounded by others dealing with similar issues, creating a supportive campus environment.”

This has some merit to it. There is something to be said about walking back from Coates Library at 11:30 p.m. the night before an exam and running into a fellow classmate working on the same review sheet in a Prassel study room. True solidarity.

Yet, I remain unconvinced. Besides the shared issues relating to class work and, ironically, dorm living, I don’t believe residential housing creates a supportive environment. In fact, I would argue it fosters significant tension. As I said, Trinity is a small school. Living, studying, working, partying and eating together starts getting old right around year two. By the time students get to their junior year, they grow tired of dealing with the same small number of people. We already know who we get along with and who we don’t. We already know who we like to spend time with and who to avoid. It’s not supportive, it’s suffocating.

“6. Personal Growth — Trinity students experience extreme personal growth, face challenges and foster friendships that generate memories that last a lifetime.”

To be frank, “personal growth” is just a regurgitation of reasons one through five. I get it. I see the reasoning. I understand why a three-year on-campus housing requirement might make perfect sense — to some people. At one point, I, too, was a proponent.

In fact, I am an active advocate for on-campus housing for first-year students at practically any college. It’s an essential rite of passage to spend a year in a dorm with a roommate you just met, surrounded by people you don’t know, all in the same boat. In a new place with no connections, it’s how college students make their first friends.

Furthermore, I think there’s nothing wrong with a two-year on-campus housing requirement. At Trinity, I think it works. As a rising sophomore, I was excited to live in Dick and Peggy Prassel Hall with my friends. Now, as a soon-to-be junior, I appreciate how our small residential campus creates an unusually tight-knit community.

That being said, the third year feels incredibly unnecessary. While I know that’s easy to say coming from me, a rising junior, there are many compelling reasons why the third year does more harm than good. Thus, now that we have reviewed Trinity’s reasons why, allow me to tell you why not three years.

1. It’s misleading. As a prospective student, you often hear of City Vista and the luxury of apartment-style living. The administration usually qualifies discussions around housing with the potential of City Vista, promising the chance that a dorm will not be your only option for three years.

This marketing is questionable. This year, CV rooms are filled primarily with seniors, leaving spots for only a select few juniors. The rest of the 2027 class was sentenced to upper-division lower-campus housing, known as some of the worst on campus.

Not to mention residential life’s recent half-hearted rebrand of Verna McLean Hall’s fourth floor as an “exclusive upper division community.” In reality, McLean’s fourth floor is first-year housing in the first-year area, with the quality and energy of that of a first-year dorm. I know because, as a first-year student, that’s exactly where I lived, and I can tell you McLean fourth is nothing special.

2. It’s financially disadvantageous. With the recent rise in prices, it is more evident than ever that Trinity charges far too much for housing. Though not drastically different from many other schools, consider the cost in terms of the three-year requirement.

Requiring three years of on-campus living means the university has little incentive to price or renovate dorms competitively. Trinity need not compete with alternative options. That’s not to say our housing should meet five-star standards. I think it’s part of the college experience to spend a year or two in a questionable dorm as part of that elusive first-year rite of passage.

However, there’s more to it. A year on Trinity’s campus costs, at the minimum, $9,340.00 for housing in a shared dorm plus $5,412.60 for the cheapest required dining plan. Meanwhile, for less than $1,000 a month at the nearby Atlee, I could live off-campus in a room of my own, with high-quality washing machines and dryers, a dishwasher, a full-sized refrigerator, controllable air conditioning, a stovetop, oven and kitchen sink, among numerous other things.

The $14,752.00 price tag on residential living at Trinity is simply unfeasible for many students. Rather than look elsewhere for more financially advantageous options, we are corralled into the one-size-fits-all expectation innate in the three-year housing requirement. However, I also understand why the university may be reluctant to let go — money.

3. It’s a logistical nightmare. The on-campus living requirement first seems to simplify concerns around housing. Trinity students don’t have to search for apartments, tour them, make deals with landlords and roommates or figure out transportation to and from campus.

However, the rigidity of the university housing system often backfires on students. For example, I’m going abroad in the fall semester of my junior year. While I am guaranteed a bed when I return in the spring, I have no guarantee of a certain roommate or dorm. Unless we have someone to switch with who is going abroad in their second semester, a small minority, as most make this decision later than those going in the fall, we have few options.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Flexible, short-term leases off-campus provide a simple alternative. Rather than rolling the dice as a 21-year-old woman on receiving a random roommate in a random dorm, I might make a choice more beneficial for myself and my circumstances.

4. It leads to genuine safety concerns. Living with a small number of people who all know who you are and who your roommate is and which room you live in should raise alarm bells. We shouldn’t be so comfortable assuming students make logical and appropriate choices just because they go to Trinity.

For many, this reason may seem frivolous. Yet, I mention it as I experienced firsthand the potential for long-term enclosed living arrangements to lead to unsafe situations. When someone in my own dorm began harassing and stalking close friends of mine, it felt like we could never get away. Though the situation was handled last semester, my friends now worry that next year, they may come to find this individual as their next-door neighbor or just down the hall.

This isn’t an isolated incident. News editor Katie Amdur reported in fall 2024 that four students reported incidents of stalking to the school, none of the perpetrators being strangers. Situations like this could be avoided by reducing the unlimited contact and access afforded by such a small school on a bubble-like campus, where almost every student’s room can be located by a quick stroll through the residence halls.

5. It’s limiting. Besides eliminating our choice of residence and meal plan, the three-year housing requirement curtails students’ opportunities while reinforcing the infamous ‘Trinity bubble.’

The summers before and after junior year are important times for undergraduates. Without our usual course load, we can gain real-world experience and expand our resumes before worries of life after graduation fully take over. It’s a time of internships, summer research, jobs and camps, but it is one in which Trinity students do not have the same chance to participate. That’s because, at Trinity, we can’t just choose to extend our lease or rent out our residence if plans fall through. We can’t readily commit to internships or jobs because we can’t guarantee we will have housing.

Beyond dissuading students from these opportunities, the requirement keeps the campus insular. Our student body is known for staying on campus and lacking engagement with the San Antonio community. By mandating three classes of students at any one time to live and eat within university walls, Trinity encourages this isolationist culture.

While I could go on and rake every one of Trinity’s points over the coals and brainstorm more reasons to the contrary, that isn’t productive. What may be productive, though, is a mindset shift. The housing requirement does not have to be syonymous with Trinity University. It’s certainly not a selling point, quite the opposite, and is a major source of student dissatisfaction and malaise.

Like I said, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s look at the requirement for what it is: a policy. Discarding its transcendental quality, the residency requirement is nothing more than an administrative decision. Trinity is not the three-year on-campus housing requirement any more than the three-year on-campus housing requirement is Trinity. While the housing requirement is likely here to stay, the university should listen to its students. Policies can change, and I think this one should.