No one who has endured a room search at 2:30 a.m. has ever questioned why a Hillsdale student would move off campus. Currently, over one-fourth of Hillsdale's students have moved off campus.
"I believe it's twenty-six percent," said Diane Watkins, executive secretary for Student Affairs and the Dean of Women. "It's probably 60-40 [men to women ratio] because [women] have more dorms on campus."
Senior Mary Leet was part of that 26 percent who decided living off campus was the way to go.
"It just feels more natural to live within a normal house; I don't feel quite so much like I'm living in a human chicken coop," she said.
Junior Ivan Heitmann jokes that he, like many students, chose to move off campus solely for the greater degree of independence-read: lesser likelihood of a fine.
"I can walk around naked without being fined," Heitmann said.
Leet also listed more universal amenities associated with the off-campus move.
"I can burn incense in my room for the first time in seven years-since I went to a boarding school, I can have boys over on Thursday nights."
"One of my favorite things is that I have a porch where I can sit and eat my breakfast in the morning and watch people drive by," Leet said.
Heitman's housemate, junior Jared Light, said he agrees the freedom of living off campus is a real added benefit to the later years of college life.
"When you're a freshman, you really do need that campus closeness, but when you get past that, after about a year, living off campus is just so much better; it's just so much more flexible," Light said.
Heitmann's first attempt at the off-campus life was less than perfect, however.
"There was basically one problem with [our first] house and that was that the tenants were thrown together," he said. "Our first priority was to fill up the house; we didn't make it a height of priority to make sure that the guys in the house were tight to begin with."
Ironically, the thing that made Heitmann's first year off-campus uncomfortable at times can also be one of its largest draws.
He explained that while proximity can be a source of irritability, "it can also be really awesome, because there's four guys in the house, and they're basically best friends and you don't have to look at other people who you don't want to look at."
Light agreed that making each other angry is inevitable, but that the set-up of off-campus living makes it easier to deal with.
"We've already had some fights, but when that happens, we each have our own room besides the main area, and normally we're not fighting, so it's not a big deal," Light said.
The problems with living off-campus are not always necessarily related to the inhabitants of the house, but can also arise from the house itself, something Heitmann learned after returning to a "revamped" billiard room in the spring semester of his junior year.
"When we came back from Christmas break, a pipe upstairs had broken because it froze, and there was one-quarter of an inch of water in the pool room downstairs, and it was several days before the landlord came by, so we basically couldn't go in that room for quite a long time," Heitmann said.
The leak was "indicative of a greater problem, which was, that the house was in terrible condition; that was a source of stress for all of us," Heitmann said.
"The big problem with that house was not so much the big hole in the ceiling from the water damage, but the complete lack of insulation. It was pretty much impossible-there were no screens-to keep outside, outside."
Heitmann added, however, that his current abode has not had any seasonal surprises.
"This place is in much better condition, it's had a lot of love," he said. "The landlord obviously takes a lot of pride in his work. He's actually the one that restored the house."
Light added that the house is kept up with an eye to the undergrad because the landlord is an alumnus of Hillsdale College.
"It helps that he's an alum and knows more what it's like to be a college student," Light said.
Heitmann said that the best reason to move off, however, is not what you can do, but the difference in what many say college is all about: expression.
"This little building is like my castle; it's a statement about me, about my life, about the things I care about," he said.
"In a dorm, you're basically limited to about three or four posters. You can't bring in a sofa or you can't put anything on the cinder-block walls; it's very limited, whereas here, you can do whatever you want."