WYPR’s John Lee had an interesting story today about Towson University and its new president, Kim Schatzel.
“This year we have the largest enrollment we’ve had in eight years so Towson is really hot,” [Schatzel] says.
Maybe not so hot though, if you live nearby. Only about a quarter of Towson’s students live on campus. Many of the rest live in the surrounding neighborhoods, creating the classic college town complaints of partying students raising a late night ruckus.
You can read the full story here.
I was so pleased to read in the Towson Flyer that University President Kim Schatzel recognizes the campus housing crisis. Former Governor Robert Ehrlich inadvertently contributed to this problem. Because It costs Maryland less money to graduate a student than any other school in the state system Ehrlich began incrementally increasing enrollment at TU. I think that was a good idea. Unfortunately, as TU became the state’s second largest student population, housing languished. Schatzel is the first TU leader who will do something about this. TU neighbors should be thankful. It’s important to look back at how TU and neighbors have suffered. A different kind of thanks goes to former TU President Robert Caret, now chancellor. Only 5,750 TU students can live on campus and 17,250 students must live off campus. For years Caret overlooked the housing crisis. And the State Board of Regents repeatedly ignored area residents’ requests for increased campus housing. Freshmen were given first choice for campus living and all others had to scramble to get the remaining rooms. As I recall there was a lottery for those rooms. For 45 years I lived in three different houses in Rodgers Forge. I thought I’d live there the rest of my life. But because of TU’s student crawl (The pun not intended.) I left 10 years ago. Demand for student housing was already so extreme that parents and real estate investors bought up houses in the Forge and other neighborhoods to fill the housing void. In some neighborhoods… Read more »