The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
Think back, way back, to the spring before your freshman year at Miami. You were anxiously checking the "Accepted!" page to see posts from your fellow classmates, and were probably posting some information about yourself in the hopes of finding that perfect roommate.
During this time, Miami was also bombarding you with a trove of information and paperwork to be completed. You were putting down deposits, choosing your orientation session, beginning to sort through class options and selecting your Living Learning Community (LLC).
These LLCs determine where all first year students live on campus. Redhawk Traditions live together just as Outdoor Leadership students live together; therefore, this choice determines your life for the next year.
But, what you probably weren't told was that different LLCs, and therefore different dorms, can cost a very different amount of money for incoming students. And, this price discrepancy is a cause for concern to the editorial board.
Older, unrenovated dorms like Havighurst or Emerson Halls, cost students an average of $5,848.00 per year if they are living in a double room.
For older dorms that have been renovated, such as Anderson Hall, this price climbs to $7,448.00 per year.
And, finally, those brand new dorms that are popping up all over campus have the steepest price of all - roughly $11,498.00 per year for room and board.
We understand that new or renovated rooms should cost more than outdated rooms - it makes perfect sense. However, because students are placed in dorms based on their LLCs and don't have control over where they live, we think this wide range of costs is unfair, especially to students already struggling to pay expensive tuition.
A student burdened with out-of-state tuition shouldn't have to pay an extra $2,000 a year just because their LLC happened to be in a renovated dorm.
We know Miami is aware of the problem this creates, and we think a solution needs to be found sooner rather than later.
Perhaps the dorms for the various LLCs can be determined before the students choose, so that they are able to see where they'll be living and how much it will cost to be in each LLC. At least then they would have some sort of idea of the cost, rather than going into the situation blind.
Another problem with cost differences is the variation in room sizes that cost the same. For instance, one double room in Tappan Hall costs the same as every other double room in Tappan. However, some of these rooms have more than double the square footage of others.
According to David Creamer, Vice President of Financial and Business Services for Miami Universirty, the cost of living in the renovated dorms will be increasing by 5.38 percent for the 2015-2016 school year. These rooms, that already cost more, are going to become more expensive. Will students be aware of this before moving in?
At a school as old as Miami, renovations and new dorms are a fact of life. Improvements must be made to campus, and these improvements aren't cheap. We understand prices will increase and, whether we like it or not, we will be paying for it on our bursar bills.
However, new students and students on campus are usually left unaware of the price differences that come with living in different areas on campus. We get placed in our dorms and we accept the bill that comes with it without questioning whether we're paying more than our neighbors.
As renovations continue in dorms across campus, Miami needs to come to a solution to give students a choice about living in a more or less expensive dorm. That difference in cost - at least $2,000 - could make a huge difference to a student that is struggling to pay for college.
Unless we can say that we are given full transparency on the cost of living at Miami University, we believe that this is one of the biggest problem facing new and current students.