Michael Ross vs. students, Ver 2.0

This is probably going to get me intro trouble, but I'm hoping maybe of the people who fly off the handle at me one of them might have a real answer, because I'm honestly curious.

I think the fact that this is an issue at all is crazy. Why enroll more students than you have room for? I'll admit, my undergraduate experience was unique - I was at a very small school and no more were admitted than there was available housing for. I never spent a summer scrambling for a room or trying to figure out a lease. I don't have those experiences from which to speak so it makes it that much more difficult for me to understand why it's necessary to try to squeeze students into overcrowded housing and classrooms. More money? It sounds like more students probably cost more money. More prestige? I don't recall "huge classrooms filled with hundreds of people" being a selling point in most college literature. I thought it was a good thing if a school was tough to get into. So... what gives?

Mike Ross can go to hell and stop pandering to Neighborhood NIMBY-ism.

The school was there long before many of the residents, and it’ll be there long after. He should do something constructive and find some real solutions on both sides, rather then putting the blame on colleges and appeasing neighborhood associations that would love to close down the colleges all together.

How about letting the colleges build some new dorms on campus? Oh right, that would involve tall, dense high rises which residents are vehemently against. Ross should take the time to explain to them that the school, as long as it’s financially sound, will be increasing enrollment and providing additional education as it see’s fit. That means that they either build new housing and keep students on campus, or the residents students in apartments problem is only going to get worse. Residents can’t have it both ways, and Ross seems like a schmuck trying to pander to their unreasonable demands.

Time to pander to their reasonable ones. Either that, or hopefully a recent grad or current student can mount a campaign to unseat him and bring some pragmatism to the problem.

Wow, thanks for all the insights! This was actually really helpful information - I live in Brighton and face a lot of the same neighborhood concerns that it sounds like Mike Ross is trying to combat in Mission Hill. Unfortunately, from what I've seen in my own neighborhood, and when I lived in Allston a few years ago, was that it wasn't always students. A lot of the bad neighbors were people living on their own for the first time, with just enough money from the new job's paycheck to buy WAY too much beer and totally lose it until the wee hours of the morning.

There are some real jerks living in a lot of these neighborhoods and landlords who look the other way. I don't know that cracking down on students in their entirety is the answer. I do think that working with the schools to manage off-campus housing is a good idea. Keeping it limited to ensure there are homes to rent or buy for a diverse audience, helping the schools to identify landlords to work with who take good care of their properties, and making sure the students who live in that housing are held to the same good neighbor standards as the folks around them... these are a couple of ways to use relationships with the schools to maintain a good quality of life in a neighborhood and keep the jerk face population, no matter who they are, to a minimum. Or so I think anyway. :)

Mike Ross is addressing a valid neighborhood concern. I don't think the goal is to eradicate student off-campus housing. But there are real issues when large numbers of students are crammed into small buildings in small neighborhoods. Disruptive behavior and noise is one issue, but so is the safety and health of students, and so is the cost to graduates and young professionals who want to stay in Boston, but are now forced to look to more affordable cities. It is alarming how many of the students that come out of Boston's great colleges and universities are choosing to leave.

As for trying to have it both ways, I think most neighborhood associations support dormitory construction and it seems that Mike Ross does also:

"I continue to work with colleges and universities to develop on-campus dormitories for undergraduates."

The knee-jerk reaction may be to portray Mr. Ross and those of us who are concerned about over-crowded off-campus housing as anti-student. But the goal here is (a) affordable housing for graduates and other young people, (b) diverse, safe communities, and (c) strong institutions that co-exist in a mutually beneficial relationship with their neighbors. Taking universities to task for breaching agreements they have made with the city is not an attack on students, it is a way to hold them accountable and give them the proper incentive to provide sufficient, quality housing for their populations.