MIT: House graduate students, support a Better World

Dr. Steven R. Hall, Chair, MIT Volpe Working Group and Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

MIT has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage the redevelopment of the Volpe site in Kendall Square to commit to providing more graduate housing, thereby lessening the substantial housing cost burden graduate students face, and reducing MIT's impact on the housing affordability crisis in our surrounding communities. A 2014 working group appointed by the MIT found that 40% of graduate families who apply to live on campus are denied, and identified at minimum a demand for 500-600 new units for graduate students, a number which has likely only grown since as housing costs have continued to increase in the surrounding area.

The MIT Volpe Working Group will very soon be issuing a midterm report to the administration and MITIMCo about what it has heard from the community. Please sign to add your name to this effort calling for making graduate student housing a priority in the Volpe redevelopment process, and add any comments about why this is important to you in the box on the right.

To: Dr. Steven R. Hall, Chair, MIT Volpe Working Group and Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
From: [Your Name]

Dear Professor Hall:

As graduate students and other members of the MIT community, we’d like to ask the MIT Volpe Working Group to convey our support for a commitment from the MIT administration to meeting the demand for on-campus graduate student housing through the Volpe redevelopment process, both to lessen the significant housing cost burden graduate students face and to minimize MIT’s impact on the housing affordability crisis in our surrounding communities.

We believe graduate housing should be prioritized in this process due to the following reasons:

1) Housing is the single largest cost for graduate students. The 2014 GSC Cost of Living survey indicated that graduate students’ housing costs were on average 45% of their stipend, which far exceeds the housing affordability standard of 30% of income [1]. A recent study of students from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning found that they are even more burdened, with on average 67% of income going to housing.

2) Existing on-campus housing supply is not meeting demand. In 2014, the Graduate Student Housing Working Group found that 40% of graduate family housing applicants had been denied in the most recent allocation cycle. Working group analysis also showed 11.5% of off-campus graduate students and 22% of graduate students with children would have preferred to live on campus [2].

3) There is insufficient graduate housing units planned to meet demand. While the new graduate residence on Main Street that will add 250 net units is encouraging, the need outstrips the supply provided by MIT. The Graduate Student Housing Working Group report identified a need of 500-600 units in 2014, which should be considered a lower bound given the increasing costs of housing [3]. That need has pushed many graduate students into surrounding communities, exacerbating the area's housing affordability challenge.

4) The Volpe redevelopment is likely to exacerbate housing scarcity. The 1,400 planned residential units will not absorb the demand from the thousands of workers the 1.7 million square feet of planned commercial, retail, and lab space hopes to attract [4]. If a significant portion of these high income workers plan on living near Kendall Square, the surrounding communities could see already squeezed housing stock move increasingly out of reach for students and community members.

While we recognize the importance of MIT being able to meet financial return targets for its investments, very limited development opportunities exist, and development decisions MIT makes now will either enable or hinder its ability to achieve its vision for a Better World in the future. If prioritizing housing for graduate students on the Volpe Parcel itself proves unfeasible, we ask that MIT commit to using proceeds from the investment for new housing units on West Campus or other suitable parcels.

We do not expect that MIT can solve the Boston area’s housing crisis, but we do expect that it play its part as a land-rich academic institution to reduce its impact on the region’s housing scarcity. In short, we want MIT to be a good neighbor. A first step would be to use the opportunity presented by the Volpe Parcel to invest in more graduate housing.

We thank you and the working group for your engagement so far with the MIT community and for conveying this message to the MIT administration.

Sincerely,

The undersigned members of the MIT community

CC:
L. Rafael Reif, President
Martin A. Schmidt, Provost
Israel Ruiz, Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor
Steven Marsh, Managing Director - MITIMCO Real Estate

Sources
[1] Cost of Living Analysis, Graduate Student Council. http://gsc.mit.edu/about-gsc/cost-of-living-analysis/
[2] Report to the Provost of The Graduate Student Housing
Working Group, May 2014. http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20140603_Provost_GradHousingFinal.pdf
[3] Ibid
[4] February 2017 Volpe Community Meeting Slides (2017). https://volpe.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Volpe-MITCommunityMeetings_Feb16-2017.pdf

Housing a Changing City, Boston 2030 (2014). https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/housing_a_changing_city-boston_2030_full_plan_1.pdf
Letter from President Reif re: MIT Endowment (2016). http://news.mit.edu/files/MIT_Congressional_Endowment_Inquiry_Response.pdf
MIT Report of the Treasurer (2016) http://vpf.mit.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/TreasurersReport/MITTreasurersReport2016.pdf