I understand the timing of the change may have been a problem since disabled students thought they would have on campus housing and didn’t start looking early enough, but otherwise I don’t see how the university is being unfair. Once these students graduate, their employers will not provide housing adjacent to their jobs and many workplaces do not have cafeterias so they will have to figure out how to handle lunch. It sounds like this is just being forced onto them unexpectedly now, which I agree is an issue, but the students are going to have to deal with this eventually.
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Just to clarify, it’s not too late for off campus housing. October, but well into November, is the norm for signing contracts for the next year, and Purdue did move up the lottery to align with that.
When all else fails, there are always sublets available even into the spring and summer just before Fall start.
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I am sure all will be eventually resolved. It is hard with initial system change that was unexpected. This is unfair to students with disabilities but hardly can be controlled. It would be ideal when changes announced in advance and rolled with new freshman so family can weight should a student enroll given situation down the road.
It is unfair if disabled student does not have a transportation mode to get to campus. It was not an issue when students initially enrolled.
Imagine that there is some housing around campus, but school busses do not stop everywhere. It may be 10 minutes walk to bus stop. In certain weather it is a tremendous hardship for a student with disability.
It is very different for work. First, workers with disabilities have prime parking. I have never heard about available parking for every student with disabilities in front of every building. Satellite parking on another side of campus with assigned spot will not help.
In addition, having a car to get to classes is not a requirement for college students. It sounds like a requirement for disabled students now since their access is limited by school busses that are usually unreliable.
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My D’s experience with the city bus at Purdue/town was that it was very reliable and all the big complexes have a stop right out in front.
But, to your point, Purdue’s campus is huge. And there is a lot of space between buildings. But in many cases off campus housing is actually closer than some of the dorms so if students are managing to get around from their dorms, they should also be able to manage from off campus.
The layout, size, weather, and Chauncey Hill are things that all students are aware of from day 1.
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This needs to happen!
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This was my concern as well; I’m curious to know if any of the impacted students currently have guaranteed on-campus housing listed in their ADA accommodations. I have seen it as an accommodation for certain diagnoses, and it was an accommodation discussed with my DD a few years ago. It certainly would add another layer of legality into the mix.
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No, since some schools do not provide housing at all.
Yes, the short notice seems particularly problematic, especially for those students with disabilities which impose greater constraints on the type of housing that is suitable for them and therefore likely need a longer lead time to look for suitable housing.
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Students who need to reach out should start here:
Director of Administration in the University Residences Directors’ Office: (765) 494-1000
Director of the Disability Resource Center at (765) 494-1247
Then escalate to the Office of the Dean of Students if necessary: (765)-494-1747
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All students who have a disability and qualified for housing preferences in the past did not have a physical disability and wouldn’t need special transportation accommodations. If a student does need transportation, it may be available from a city or state agency too. Some of those who had a disability needed a private room or a quiet room or a room with a private bath, and those are available off campus.
If the housing near a campus is fairly new or has been remodeled, it may have a percentage of handicapped accessible apartments, parking spaces, elevators. The ADA doesn’t require them to have an apartment for everyone who needs it.
If the student presents a 504 plan, the school has to make reasonable accommodations. Remember the school had no input into the plan, so if it says the student can only take classes between midnight and 3 am, it is not reasonable for the school to switch all classes this student needs to that time frame. If it says this student must have morning classes, it is reasonable to let this student register for a 10 am class first if the only other class available is at 3 pm. If 2000 students present 504 plans that say they need a private room but the school doesn’t offer private rooms, that accommodation can’t be met. My sister had 10 kids with IEPs one year that all required them to sit in the front row. She didn’t have 10 rows for 27 students. Some requests can’t be met and aren’t really necessary but become part of the IEP as boilerplate. My daughter’s first IEP said she needed extra time for tests but she’d never even taken a test (she was 4). It was put in there because it was accepted as needed in the first IEP but if it wasn’t in there it would have been harder to add in the future. She never used extra time.
I don’t think the new plan is unreasonable. It is treating all students the same in the lottery. I’m actually surprised that Purdue has 8000 beds for non-freshmen.
It is strange that no meal plan is available to off campus students. My daughter’s school had a M-F lunch plan. Lunch was from 10-3. Her boyfriend often ate 3 meals between 10 and 3! Daughter lived off campus but had a full meal plan as part of her scholarship.
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I agree with 90% what you said. But there are also students with depression who have to be on campus or they will not be able to drag themselves to classes and graduate. Imagine a schedule with 10am then 2 pm class every day. That student needs to literally lay down between classes. There is no way on earth they would walk 10 minutes to nearest bus stop, wait bus for 10 minutes, get to class, come back to apartment, rest, repeat same for an afternoon. Not happening. In the best case student will either show up at 10am or 2 pm…
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I don’t know, my 21 year old gets accommodations due to anxiety and depression (full neuropsychological evaluation, he’s never used his accommodations), he went from a residential college situation to a commuting one. He’s 10 minutes away from college, and would actually schedule classes with a break, he’d come home in between. It worked for him. So many parents claim their kids with allergies and/or anxiety required dorms with a/c and/or singles, heck my son could do that, even if not necessary. To me it’s the difference between needing a service dog and an emotional support animal, so many people (like those who want to have a pet in an apartment not allowing pets) take advantage.
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Yet on physically large campuses, like Purdue, some off campus housing could be closer to classroom bldgs than some on-campus dorms.
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Maybe, but I doubt a school of Purdue’s size would work for a student like that. No dorm would be close to every class for the student to be close enough to walk to class A, then home, then nap, then back to class B. Every semester for all different classes. biology, math, dance, history all over campus.
Schools can’t be everything for everybody. My friend needed that, she found a school that could provide it and it still didn’t work for her. She got her own single room, got to stay in the LLC even though she couldn’t live with them, had accommodations for taking notes and using a laptop and all kinds of things other students didn’t get. She didn’t make it a whole semester. What worked for her was transferring to a big public school, living at home, taking public transportation to school and staying through all of her classes each day. She made it work by NOT doing it the way it was outlined on her 504 plan but it took some trial and error. She found places to rest or study during the day, places to eat (she’s gluten free), and headed home when she needed to.
I’m sure Purdue didn’t just decide to be mean to students with disability accommodations, but found the system they had wasn’t working best for the school, for all the students who wanted to live in dorms.
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Meal Plans lists what meal plans are available to which students.
| Meal plan | Available to all residential students | UR Boiler Apartment and Aspire residents | Available to a limited number of commuter students who have previously lived in University Residences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited, 14-track, 10-track, 7-track | Y | Y | N |
| 80-block, 50-block | N | Y | Y |
If “all residential students” means only those living in the campus dorms, then those living off-campus can only get the 80-block or 50-block plans (and only a limited number can get them).
All points are valid. What is not the best is to force changes for students with disabilities that already upper classmen and didn’t expect them.
I think school should try to accommodate those students, so they could graduate.
Talk to school.
I had a kid in similar situation at the last semester in GaTech, and we had no idea about “Uber” transportation. That transportation made a huge difference and is the only life line in our case.
Also it is pain in a neck to get of campus housing for one semester. It took absolutely enormous efforts to find a solution by a very persistent adult…
We solved food issue on day one on campus by getting deep freezer and ready to drink protein shakes (when 0 energy for any prep). First thing we did all these years on move in days was to load deep freezer with favorite food (in our case trips to Trader Joe’s and Costco.) My kid would never get to food court on campus or off campus, so any meal plan would not work for us. No meal plan was the best solution.
Also there are food prep shipping services these days (may not work for big apartments that use outside shipping services for storage). But point is you need to be proactive and creative to solve your particular situation to get to a graduation point.
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A lot of student disability accommodation requests remind me of ESA pet accommodations. Honestly, I cannot blame people. Kids work so hard to get in, families are paying so much, and so much is riding on their education. And then the college sticks them 2 or 3 in a tiny room, at an exorbitant price, usually with strangers, who can be inconsiderate, intolerant, even have mental health issues. Sure, it often works out, but sometimes it does not.
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Maybe I’m jaded, but that’s exactly how I feel. Some students really do need accommodations, some people really do need service dogs. My son is a commuter, has accommodations, and I believe he’d be eligible for a single with a/c with his paperwork. He does not actually need a single or a/c for his anxiety or seasonal allergies (he grew out of asthma).
Please avoid the temptation to read books by their cover. Many disabilities are hidden or invisible. A need for accomodations doesn’t need to be obvious, publicized or justified to outsiders to be valid. We never really know what others are enduring.
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