Second-year students will be expected to live on-campus again with a return to the policy expected to return for the fall 2021 semester. Credit: Sophia Tobias | For the Lantern
First-year students eager to get out of residence halls will have to wait another year, as Ohio State’s two-year on-campus living requirement will likely be back in the fall.
Students are typically required to live on campus for two years, but due to the pandemic, Ohio State offered an exemption to reduce population density in residence halls. Now, as COVID-19 cases stabilize in the state and with the university expecting to resume normal operations in the fall, university spokesperson Dave Isaacs said in an email the second-year living requirement will be back in place next academic year.
“The policy is part of a comprehensive Ohio State effort to support the success of second year students, anchored by STEP, the Second-year Transformational Experience Program,” Isaacs said.
Isaacs said the two-year on-campus housing requirement was established in 2016, with the only exemptions being for married students, students living with a parent or close relative less than 25 miles from campus, those living in nonuniversity scholarship or academic housing or living in an approved Greek Life facility. Before implementing the policy, Isaacs said the university commissioned a study on second-year student success that found higher graduation and two-year retention rates among students who lived on campus their second year than those who did not.
Although many hope for a greater sense of normality during the fall 2021 semester, some students still have reservations about living in a group setting in residence halls next year.
“I know for a lot of people, they’re really concerned about the spread of COVID again, because it spreads pretty fast in a dorm,” Ainsley Snyder, a first-year in public health, said.
Snyder said her residence hall is currently experiencing a COVID-19 surge after the two-day instructional break Feb. 23-24. The on-campus seven-day COVID-19 positivity rate doubled to more than 1 percent in a one-week span leading up to March 2, prompting Ohio State to increase its testing requirement to twice a week for campus residents. As of Monday, it was 1.06 percent.
“I know that a lot of people are really feeling the way I know I would be: very stressed out,” Snyder said. “I feel like it takes away some of the freedom.”
Christina Javorka, a second-year in marketing, said she took advantage of the exemption last fall when she moved out of her residence hall three weeks into the semester.
Javorka said she and her roommate decided to move off campus to save money and have a bit more safety and control over their COVID-19 exposure.
“It’s also hard where everyone’s so isolated already to further isolate people, so it’s nice to be able to — we’re still COVID conscious — but to be able to control how many people are in our house and we can still have people over that we trust,” Javorka said. “It’s been really nice to kind of have that freedom.”
