Despite President Richard Joel’s joke at the end of the recent Town Hall Meeting, the housing problem faced by Stern students is no laughing matter. While a much-needed study hall will finally be open for use on Brookdale Hall’s second floor this Friday, Brookdale remains overcrowded, and apartments originally designed for four people are housing as many as six.
From Joel’s remarks, it seems unclear how the situation should be expected to improve. He said that the university is considering a system recently adopted by other colleges in which students would pay more or less depending on what level of housing they wanted, which raises the alarming specter of class divisions in the dorms, with the wealthiest students occupying the best rooms together while the poorer students are forced to live in lower-class facilities.
While the president said that the administration is looking into renting more apartments, this is a stop-gap solution, and one that would not be so necessary were he not so ambitious about increasing enrollment. The impression Joel gives is that he’s more concerned about the impression increased enrollment will give to outsiders, than the impression a lack of housing leaves with his current students.