The time has come and gone for A&T’s housing lottery. By now, most of you know whether you have on-campus housing for the fall or not.

Now this topic is near and dear to my heart because I have gone through the drama of the housing selection process. Fortunately, I am graduating in May and did not have to go through the “drama” this year.

But I feel for the people who do not have housing next semester and haven’t a clue as to what to do. My personal problem with this whole housing selection is that it basically stinks. It has gotten to the point where if you are an upperclassman, your chance of receiving housing is as slim as a split atom.

Don’t get me wrong; I see the strides that A&T is making to accommodate more students. However, the new housing accommodations are APARTMENTS in which students have to pay rent.

What A&T needs are new DORMS. Every college student know that unless your family has money to burn, the four or so years you spend in college are the most financially restricted years of your life. If you don’t learn anything else in college, you will definitely learn the value of a dollar.

When is comes to housing assignment, upperclassmen are basically second string. Freshmen and transfer students are guaranteed housing, which is understandable. But what about out-of-state students? What about the students who don’t have the luxury of personal transportation?

With the limited amount of space and the growing number of students, many students will be forced in this ugly cycle: Since you don’t have on-campus housing, you need an apartment. To keep an apartment, you need to pay rent. To pay rent, you need a job.

Let’s say that you find a job. What if this job is not walking distance? Do you have a car? No? Gee, how are you going to get to work, to pay the rent and keep a roof over your head since you cannot stay on campus?

Out-of-state students really have it bad because home is hundreds of miles away. Even if you are from North Carolina, would you want to commute two hours from Charlotte to spare yourself from worrying about paying rent?

I know some of you are saying, “What’s wrong with working and going to school at the same time?” Absolutely nothing, if you can handle it or if you have no other choice. But when you are 18 or 19 years old and in college, your main goal should be getting your degree and moving on to bigger and better things after you graduate. That is when you should worry about where your humble abode will be.

And as tuition-paying students, we should have the right to stay on campus if we want. We should not be forced to scrimp and scrape to find shelter because our university cannot satisfy our housing needs. If you can only accommodate me for one year, then don’t take my money and don’t accept my application. I will save my money and my energy for an institution of higher learning that can.

As hard as it is to believe, I do not have a personal vendetta against the housing department at A&T. I appreciate my experiences and my education here. But the housing selection is the one thing I will gladly leave behind when I graduate.