Student’s Airbnb dorm deal runs afoul of rules
College students have always come up with creative ways to pay tuition. They’ve been known to live off ramen noodles, and more recently, the loan-burdened but intrepid have tried crowdfunding their education.
No wonder, then, that a sophomore at Emerson College recently attempted to get back a slice of the price he has paid by listing his Boston dorm room on Airbnb last month.
Jack Worth’s ad offered “a private, single-bedroom unit with sweeping views of Boston Common, right in the heart of downtown,” according to The Boston Globe.
The location was a 12-story dormitory that houses about 750 students.
Three people took advantage of Worth’s accommodations. “Really, the idea just came from the combination of understanding where Emerson is located in the city, and it being in such a heavily-desired neighborhood,” Worth, 19, told the Globe. “And the thought of how I could make a little bit of extra money.”
But this business venture went against school rules.
Emerson spokesman Andy Tiedemann explained in an email to Reuters that the residence hall policy prohibits students from renting out their housing units “to protect residents and the community from exposure to safety and security risks.”
Worth has since taken down the listing at the school’s behest, andhe faces a disciplinary hearing on “several charges of misconduct,” according to a Change. petition that has taken up his cause.
As of Wednesday, more than 400 people had signed in support of Worth’s “honest, entrepreneurial endeavor.”
Worth has not said how much he was charging for the room.
Worth is by no means alone.
A search through Airbnb yielded postings of dorms at Columbia University, Brooklyn College and Berkeley. The Huffington Post found others at MIT, Temple University and the University of Chicago — all schools in tourist-laden cities where cheap housing is in demand.
Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty told Reuters that hosts must follow their local rules.