It was a scant seven semesters ago that I was opening up the door of the first real bastion of my independence: a Roosevelt dorm room. After lofting the bed to the ceiling and navigating the bowels of the second-least sensible structure on this particular geographic plate, I turned the corner to check out my bathroom. The two stalls were already labeled “Pisser” and “Shitter.” But being told where to defecate was just the start of my university experience.

I lived on north campus for two academic years, first in Governerds and then in the Ellicott complex. I guess it was pretty normal—there was rarely hot water, my neighbors were amplifier enthusiasts, and there was this nice girl down the hall who would give me free condoms but refused to help me use them. This sort of thing was vital to my growth and academic achievement, or so I’m told.

That’s what UB officials are saying now that there’s a proposal to build another student occupied apartment complex near campus. Like Sweethome, the little village that couldn’t, it will be privately-owned, connected to UB only by shuttle service. That is, if the town board rezones the land and lets developer GMH build there.

School officials such as Dennis Black have cited a long list of concerns they have with the proposed Rensch Road project, and one of them is the assertion that off-campus students don’t get the “university experience.” At an Amherst Town Board meeting last week, Black stated that on-campus residents do better in school, are more likely to graduate, and even attend more sporting events than their off-campus brethren. Apparently this is a result of the services UB provides to its residents.

This university experience is rather costly—a double dorm room ran at $626 per month this year—especially when one considers that the housing in Buffalo is bargain basement cheap. I don’t blame anyone who forgoes free samba classes in the Fargo common room to cut the rent by a few hundred bucks.

But this is about more than money or how many basketball games you go to. The real issue is a word that keeps coming up whenever UB’s future is being discussed: image. UB’s image, Amherst’s image, SUNY’s image. I’m not quite sure who’s watching, but there are those who are concerned about what everyone’s going to think if UB’s on-campus housing empties out.

Not that there’s a big chance of that happening anytime soon; every year, the fall semester brings a slew of unsettled students living on cots or in hotels. Why? The dorms are always overbooked, so when students drop out or transfer all the slots will remain full.

There’s obviously a demand for these beds. Part of the reason I moved off-campus was because I was tired of engaging in the little games RHA comes up with to decide who gets the best room, or a room at all. It’s doubtful that another private-owned student housing complex would deal a blow to on-campus housing. If anything, the competition is sorely needed to get the not-so-Sweethome (ha!) complex in line. I hear their windows are getting glass this summer.

Capitalism sucks, UB. Our fine institution has made every effort to exist in a vacuum (building north campus in the middle of a suburban swamp was a nice start), but when you plop almost 18,000 undergraduates in the middle of nowhere, entertainment, shopping, and food services will invariably follow because there’s a buck to be made. And when there’s no place for those students to live and you threaten to bring more, someone’s going to step up and put roofs over their heads. Don’t cry because they’re beating you to the job.

If you build it, they will come.