Living within the campus community is an important aspect of a student’s personal development and education. Research continues to demonstrate that students who live on campus benefit in a number of ways. In fact, students who live on campus beyond their freshman year:
- Are more likely to persist and graduate
- Gain more interpersonal contacts with faculty and peers
- Experience greater personal growth and development
- Have higher academic engagement and grade point average
- Have higher social-interpersonal engagement
- Participate more in out-of-class activities
- Have more positive and inclusive attitudes and openness to diversity
- Find more satisfaction with their undergraduate experience
(Source: How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research by Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2005)
For this reason, all students under 20 years of age who are enrolled as full time students and classified as dependent (except veterans and married couples) must live on campus.
Students must reach the age of 20 prior to the start of a major semester to reside off campus.
Students may reside with their parents, grandparents, or aunts/uncles provided their permanent address is in the Charleston area for tax purposes. Relatives must be of a “reasonable” parental age. Also, students who have lived in the residence halls for four (4) consecutive major semesters, but who still have not reached 20 years of age will be considered for an exception.
These are the only exceptions that will be considered and other requests that do not meet the above criteria will not be approved.
Failure to follow this policy will result in the student being billed for the cost of the room and board.
