Contracts are binding

More and more students are beginning to move off campus to their own apartments and commute daily to the University.

The question is not if students should be able to move off campus or not, that decision should be taken on an individual basis, the question is should the Office of Housing and Residential Life release these students?

Students do not always wait to move out when their housing contract legally ends.

And when students want to move out during the academic year, they face problems with the Housing Office, as every student who lives on campus signs a year-long contract with the University, agreeing to live in the residence halls the entire year.

So if the students want to move out and break their contracts, should housing let them out?

Going to college is a part of growing up, it’s the transition between the time when your parents take care of your business and the time when you have to take full responsibility for your actions and their consequences.

That means that it is time for the students to say goodbye to an unrealistic environment. And this also means that it is time to respect contracts.

The students that move into apartments will find this out quickly.

Their new landlord will not let them out of their contract without a serious reason if they cannot present a replacement tenant.

And the search for more freedom, the escape from campus policies or just the desperation for the off-campus experience cannot be considered a serious reason.

This does not mean that ULV housing office should act intolerant against its students, but they are going to hold students to the document they signed to live on campus for an entire year.

Of course, there are issues where the choice of moving is not really up to the student.

This is why housing lets students go if they stop their study at ULV, get married, have health problems or face financial hardship.

Going along with the consistently increasing tuition, the latter is the most frequent justification used by students to be released from the contract.

To get out of their binding contracts, the students have to show documentation about their financial situation in order to be approved.

But still, this is an opportunity an ordinary landlord would not offer the tenant. Out in the real world, the landlord would not care about your medical, family or financial situation.

The point of a student’s education is to prepare him or her for real life. And this does not happen by letting the student live in a protected bubble where his actions have no consequences.

The students should learn that a signed contract has a lot of consequences till the day of his expiration.

And they are better off learning it now with an understanding with the housing office rather than later on with a landlord.