When planning to study abroad for a semester, the focus may be on destination housing, but members of the Office of Overseas Study encourage students to put thought into their Bloomington housing as well.
Residential Programs and Services and other off campus locations provide students with housing options while they are in Bloomington. This includes leasing or subleasing off-campus locations or applying for a fall only contract through RPS housing.
“We recommend students try to plan a year in advance of when they want to go abroad,” Assistant Director Katie Saur said.
In addition to Bloomington housing, this planning includes academic and financial aspects of the semester abroad.
Kelly Thacker, RPS assistant director of housing assignments, said this contract is designed for students leaving Bloomington after the fall semester due to graduation or participating in an IU program such as an internship, student teaching or study abroad. The student must have lived on campus for at least two semesters.
The fall semester contract is available only for Ashton and Evermann residence locations.
“Evermann is more apartment styles, so it might be a good option for upperclass students,” Saur said.
Only a limited number of these fall only contracts are allowed, causing the housing locations to fill up quickly. Students wanting this option should follow the RPS weekly newsletter, InTouch, to be notified when the contracts are posted.
Katie Blake, senior, had already decided her housing plans for her sophomore year before hearing of the fall only contract. She had decided to live in Union Street Center. When it came time for her to study abroad in southern France, she opted to cancel her RPS contract.
Blake said she paid thousands of dollars to cancel her contract. Her 2014 -2015 contract stated students would have to pay the daily rental amount through the cancellation date and 60 percent of the remaining balance on the contract.
The 2016 to 2017 housing contract says students would pay a $600 fee for canceling the contract as well as the daily rental amount through the cancellation date.
Blake said she wishes there were more options available for the fall only contract, so students would not have to go through the hassle of breaking the full year contract.
From an RPS standpoint, the cancellation of housing contracts can cause some issues.
“When a student leaves unexpectedly, this impacts the overall occupancy and, in turn, income of RPS,” Thacker said. “It is not always true that we are able to fill a space vacated by another student.”
For those wishing to live off campus, Saur said another option is to sublease. While she said she believes this option is a little more challenging, she suggests posting or looking in the IU Classifieds.
“I went abroad the spring semester of my final year, and I ended up just getting a fall sublet because I knew I was going to be gone for the spring,” Saur said.
She stresses that students should plan financially in case they cannot find another student to sublease to and end up paying the full year’s rent.
This also may be the case within greek houses, but Saur said students living there should check with their specific house’s breakage policies. She has seen cases in the past where students have had to pay Bloomington rent as well as their rent while they are abroad.
“It is something we want students to be thinking about as they’re starting to plan their time abroad,” Saur said.
