A Constrained Choice Model for Student Housing

Traditionally, a university will formulate its policies for student housing on a short-run basis, adjusting its plans for residence hall and other on-campus housing from time to time to meet expected crises in the next few years ahead. In addition, university policy making in this field has tended to center around on-campus housing, neglecting the often substantial role played—or capable of being played—by the private market.

In this paper, the author proposes that a university can usefully formulate a long range policy for student housing by (1) including in its definition of the housing system all the facilities that are used for housing students, whether on or off-campus and (2) examining the trade-offs available through the use of a formal analytical model.

It is proposed that a linear program provides a useful framework for examining the issues in such an expanded housing system, and an application of this proposed approach is illustrated for a campus of the University of California.