Student housing cooperative

A student housing cooperative, also known as co-operative housing, is a housing cooperative for students in an educational institution.

Unlike a resident who acquires shares at market rates to earn the right to occupy a specific apartment on a permanent basis (share capital co-op model), a resident of a student co-op acquires membership and occupancy rights by paying subscription fees or by paying rent (non-share capital co-op model). In the case of student housing co-operatives, members typically share a house and are communally responsible for its associated housekeeping duties.

Student-owned and -operated housing co-operatives were formed primarily for economic reasons to provide low-cost housing to university students. Secondarily, they generally provide experience in self-governance and social cooperation.

By country

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, housing cooperatives as a whole are scarce as a form of residence ownership, and was only introduced in earnest in 2004 when MMUnion partnered with the National Union of Students and Confederation of Co-operative Housing to offer cheaper co-operatively owned alternatives to city housing for Manchester Metropolitan University students.

United States

Artist, student and community co-operatives are common in the San Francisco Bay Area. Many of these housing co-operatives are members of organizations such as NASCO. Several of the earliest US student cooperatives (e.g. at Northwestern University and Wellesley College) had begun by at least 1915, for the purpose of housing female students. Other early examples started in the Depression years: Harriet E. Richards Cooperative House at Boston University, founded in 1928, the Cooperative Living Organization at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida founded in 1931, and the Michigan Socialist House at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan founded in 1932.

Currently, the biggest student co-op is the Berkeley Student Cooperative, formerly known as the University Students Cooperative Association, in Berkeley, CA with 1300 students living in 17 houses and 3 apartment complexes. Other large-scale co-op systems include the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan, MSU Student Housing Cooperative of Michigan State University and UCLA University Cooperative Housing Association with 400+ students.

Other examples of such cooperatives include:

• College Houses and the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Texas at Austin
• Cooperative Housing at Purdue University at Purdue University (in West Lafayette, Indiana)
• the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association at Oberlin College
• University Students' Cooperative Association in Berkeley, California
• Community of Urbana Champaign Cooperative Housing in Urbana, Illinois
• the Tri Co-ops and Baggin's End/Domes in Davis, California
• Santa Cruz Student Housing Co-ops in Santa Cruz, California
• Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative in Santa Barbara, California
• Qumbya in Chicago, Illinois
• Cooperative Housing at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland
• University of Minnesota Students Co-op in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Minnesota Students' Cooperative in Saint Paul, MN
• Students' Co-Op at the University of Minnesota
• Student Housing Cooperative at Michigan State University
• Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan
• Brown Association for Cooperative Housing in Providence, Rhode Island
• Universe City Cooperative in Norman, Oklahoma
• Kalamazoo Collective Housing in Kalamazoo, Michigan
• and Two Dickinson Street Co-op in Princeton, New Jersey.