The number of students who reside in off-campus housing will be drastically reduced next year, according to Assistant Director of ResLife Rich DeCapua.

Currently, around 200 students live off-campus. Next year, the University hopes to reduce this number to somewhere around 20, or “a handful,” DeCapua said.

The new dormitories being constructed on Fauver Field for freshmen and upperclassmen will be pivotal in this process, allowing the University to house 270 more students on campus.

DeCapua maintains that the motivation for the change is to strengthen the Wesleyan undergraduate community.

“This is a four-year residential community,” he said. “Living off-campus is a breaking of the house contract.”

Some students suspect that this is not the main reason for the changes.

“They want to maximize profit,” said Sivan Cotel ’05. “It’s better for them to build a hi-rise in which utilities and management costs less and have students still pay the same price they would if they were living in a regular house.”

Cotel currently lives off-campus and said that he is saving between $1,000 and $2,000 per year.

There will always be some students who remain off-campus due to extenuating circumstances, according to Vice President for Finance and Administration Marcia Bromberg. ResLife is expecting to have to accommodate for possible miscalculations in on-campus room estimates.

Many particulars about the housing plan, including the extent of the change and the exact housing redistribution, remain unclear. This semester, ResLife and other University staff will meet to hammer out details and to work out how the changes will be presented to the student community.

“The faster we get this information to the students, the better,” DeCapua said.

The Fauver Field Residences, on the corner of Vine and Cross Streets, will house students who might otherwise be off-campus. Among the goals is “progressively independent living,” according to the Wesleyan website. How they will compare to current off-campus housing qualitatively is not known.

In October DeCapua will begin to meet with other administration and campus representatives like Dean of Student Services Mike Whaley and the Undergraduate Residential Life Committee to decide how the phasing-out process will move forward. New criteria will be established to limit who can receive off-campus status.

“Now, students request exemption from campus because they want to assure living in a house with friends, but we need to have new priorities to work with,” Whaley said. Students and Administration will work to decide which circumstances, such as financial necessity, marriage, religion, etc, will play into future decisions about living off-campus. Currently, students are allowed off-campus status based on seniority and a first-come, first-serve basis.

Becca Seely ’06 said that she decided to live off-campus because it’s a more comfortable living environment than Hi Rise or Lo Rise, where most juniors reside.

“It’s kind of hard to pay bills on your own,” Seely said. “The house wasn’t clean when we moved in, but living in a wood-frame house you feel a lot more independent and it’s a lot more privacy than living in a dorm. Even though it’s cheaper it’s not [much] cheaper, and I would prefer to live on campus if I could have a house.”

Many students who live off campus pay about $350 in rent per month, not including utilities. Such extra costs bring the total price to a little over $400 per month. According to the ResLife website, students pay $5,996 per year. Students with off-campus housing paying $400 per month would pay for about 10 months and sublet for the summer, which would mean they are spending just over $4,000 per year on average.

Emily Meyer ’05 and Ilana Rossein ’05 have lived off-campus since their sophomore years. Rossein said she understands that it’s expensive for the school to keep up wood-frame houses and allow students to live off-campus. However, both said they couldn’t think of many disadvantages to living off campus for students and were glad they are able to.

“Off campus housing just offers students one more option in the entire housing game here at Wesleyan,” said Katie Walsh ’05. “I chose to be off campus this year because my house is in a great location with great people and I didn’t want to risk the housing lottery. Now I have to deal with utility bills and landlords demanding money from me, but I consider that a good learning experience for the real world. ResLife phasing out off-campus housing just seems like another attempt by the administration to have greater control over student life.”