By Rachel Wagner
IV Leader Staff, Oct. 25, 2007
Are you tired of the commute to IVCC? Spending way too much in gas and on a reliable car? There may be a solution in progress, in the way of student housing. A master plan involving student housing has been set into place, allowing for 300 beds, and 250 parking spaces.
If the student housing project follows through, the buildings will be located on the west side of campus, just north of the existing baseball field. IVCC is the third largest community college district in the state that encompasses 2,000 square miles.
Many students have a long commute to school, and public housing may be the answer.
Victoria Roberts, an IVCC student from Buda, said that she has an hour commute to school and “with student housing there wouldn’t be such a stress to wake up early to get to school on time.”
In order to make this plan a reality, there would have to be much support from the community because local tax payers would be contributing to this project.
The housing portion of the master plan has not been a high priority for the Board of Trustees because students have not shown an active interest
yet.
Jerry Corcoran, vice president for Business Services and Finance, said that “a great project for student government would be to survey the community and the students to see how well student housing would go over in the community…. If there is a need, we will respond.”
here is more to public housing than just having a master plan. IVCC will have to study how well public housing has gone over in other districts similar to theirs, and also see how well their communities have responded to it.
A door to allow community colleges to have student housing opened during the past legislative session when the General Assembly
considered allowing some community colleges to offer housing. Illinois Central in Peoria is one of the campuses that will add student housing.
IVCC’s master plan is reviewed every five years. If this plan succeeds, IVCC could see public housing within the next 10 to 15 years. This project is not simple by any means, but in the end could be well worthwhile. To find out more about this master plan, students can visit http://www.ivcc.edu/businessservices/.