Defacing dorm property or drunkenly throwing punches at resident assistants may be surefire tickets for expulsion from the dorms. But slipping below a 2.0 GPA is also grounds for removal from the dorms at State University of New York, the College at Old Westbury.
The policy, on the books since 1994, was enforced for the first time this winter, said Michael Kinane, assistant to the president for advancement at SUNY.
At the close of the fall semester, 87 students were notified of the policy. Of those students, 64 enrolled again and 23 did not return, he said.
Students who drop below the marker aren't allowed to return to their dorm until their GPA rises. Dining passes and ID cards are switched off.
"The use of residence halls is a privilege, and our goal is to extend that goal to serious students who wish to study," Kinane said.
It's too early to determine whether the policy has motivated the 1,000 students who live on campus to stay above a 2.0, but Kinane said academic accountability talks on campus have been the best he's seen in his eight years there.
The dorm GPA rule is not a national trend and is "very isolated," said Kevin Kruger, associate executive director of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
"It runs a little contrary to the philosophical approach to residence halls," Kruger said. "If students are struggling academically, we want them in the resident halls."
Kruger said there's some evidence that students who live in residence halls do slightly better academically than off-campus students.
"There's not anything wrong with making housing an incentive, incentives do work for students, it's just not historically how we've approached people to access their residence hall system," Kruger said.
Residence hall administrators at Seton Hall University use a 1.8 GPA policy as a "retention tool," said Tara Hart, director of housing and residence halls at Seton Hall, South Orange, NJ.
Since 2001, the faculty has utilized the rule to check up on mainly first year students who are struggling, she said. Many times, the faculty learns the student needs counseling instead of extra tutoring.
"We use it to keep students connected to the university," Hart said.
The university has never kicked students out of the dorms for a low GPA, she said. Instead, students can apply for an exemption policy, which triggers a series of conversations with administrators about their grades, she said.
The rule has been "exceedingly successful," Hart said. Less than 40 percent of the 2,300 students fell into this category last fall, whereas there were three times as many the first year, she said.
"We're creating an environment on campus of being focused on studies which is why housing exists-to support the academic endeavor," Hart said.
Joseph King, professor of psychology and director of the honors college at Radford University in Radford, Va., said every school wants a different environment on their campus.
"I definitely wouldn't want one where you're immediately kicked out in the middle of the year," King said. "Gee, you're 18. You're allowed to be 18. You're allowed to mess up. America loves a comeback kid."