Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 1 - 71

Deposit-Based Housing Selection
IMPLICATIONS
Day to day in this industry of student care, all practices and systems must fall under the
universally understood mission of fostering intentional learning and holistic development
(Davis, 2011). However, the cultural normalization of racism means that policies
and procedures not specifically scrutinized through the lens of CRT often unintentionally
perpetuate and maintain systems of race-based oppression in the college setting
(Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Universities across the nation champion their robust residential
experiences as essential to a student's success on campus and their ultimate
completion of a degree (Blimling, 2014). Therefore, it is of dire importance that these
institutions consider the significant negative impact that DBHS has on a marginalized
student's well-being and sense of belonging and then work to correct this.
As neoliberal ideologies have taken hold of higher education institutions (Saunders,
2014) and set in place processes based on chronological monetary commitment, they
have also created the opportunity for gentrification of residential facilities. Macrosystems
created by such practices affect the equity of residential housing opportunities by
segregating students according to differences in socioeconomic status and in their generational
understanding of the college experience, which has a disproportionate impact
on racially marginalized identities (Foste, 2021). For example, first-generation students
are less likely to have an operational understanding of the mechanics of universities and
therefore may not be aware of the implications of submitting delayed deposits; in addition,
people of color are more likely to be identified as first-generation students and are
affected by poverty at a higher rate, which has an impact on their ability to pay a deposit
without the financial aid necessary to secure their selection placement in the first place
(Paulson & Griswold, 2009). This dynamic ultimately creates limited space for affected
students, causing " gross disparities in housing options [to] reproduce a system in which
certain students have significantly more agency over their educational experience than
others " (Foste, 2021, p. 183). Well-meaning housing officers then unintentionally reinforce
the idea of race as a social construct, as defined by CRT (Delgado & Stefancic,
2001), thus contributing to the maintenance of racist, classist, and other hierarchical
systems and the sabotage of the overall educational objective of higher education.
LIMITATIONS
To support the claims stated in this article, the authors thoroughly searched for data to
indicate which and how many institutions of higher education are utilizing a DBHS
or CBHS (contract-based housing selection) model or a blend of the two; however, this
review yielded no additional insight from what had been previously researched. The
findings discussed in this article reveal that these practices are widespread, but not to
what extent. This absence of data indicates a need for future research of a different
scope than this article can address and for increased accessibility to institutional statistics.
Similarly, it was also difficult to identify an exact or average figure for housing
deposits from institution to institution without conducting a new study. Indeed, the
68 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 1

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