Roommate Assignments: Managing The Process and Supporting Students of Color

Abstract

Getting a roommate is one of the first milestones of a student’s campus experience. In the past decade, the rise of social media and online roommate-matching sites has changed how students find roommates, and the proportion of incoming students choosing their preferred roommate has increased. Lately, however, multiple institutions moved to requiring incoming students to have institutionally-assigned roommates in the hope of increasing cross-cultural interactions. We investigated this assertion using data from 76 schools participating in an ACUHO-I sponsored study. Results show that preventing students from choosing their own roommates is not an effective method of increasing interactional diversity. We also discovered that the policies can have negative consequences for students of color. Considering these findings, the NSSE research team makes recommendations for institutions.