College Dorms: A Place to Study or Socialize?

Ryan Kerns

College dorms have been a part of the college experience for decades now. They provide a safe, structured environment for fellow students to reside in while they commence their studies. They also provide a relatively efficient way to house students on campus without having to buy many individual places for students to live in. However, what most college officials don’t realize is that this financially efficient way to house students can sometimes be very detrimental to a students’ learning ability. For example, some studies have shown that cramped living environments can sometimes lead to negative pear pressure that students weren’t exposed to in high school and can create many alternative activities to studying and preparing for classes. To help prove this, Bruce Saccerdote did a study, Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results of Dartmouth Roomate, which proved, “peers have an impact on grade point average and on decisions to join social groups such as fraternities.” Unfortunately, this peer pressure is of the negative type pressuring students to socialize and to do anything other than study. Another study that proves this is a study by Richard Wertz for the University of South Carolina. He claims that in his random sample of over a thousand students, only 52.3% of students living in the freshmen dorms thought that their rooms were a place for study, while over 95% agreed that the dorms were a place to meet new friends. This helps prove that students are exposed to many different opportunities and when given the choice between studying and socializing, unfortunately, socializing usually wins out. So, this begs the question, what can be done about these detrimental effects? Is there any other way to house the students in a more productive fashion?