The housing policy was modified last week at the Board of Regents meeting. Two out of six clauses were updated for clarity purposes.

Michael Mills, resident hall director, said the changing these rules for campus housing will better for students in the long run.

These clarifying updates will provide students with the typical college living experience.

“We just want to make sure students are getting the full experience of why campus housing was created in the first place,” he said.

The first update of the policy states that a student must live no more than 60 miles from the MSU campus to be considered tfor off campus housing.

Mills said this keeps students from saying they commute 100 miles when they really just want to live off campus as a freshman.

“Now the university has a set limit on what a reasonable distance for commuting is,” Mills said.

In the university’s previous policy, it stated anyone who is living at home with their parents or legal guardians, and commuting to class, is exempt from the housing policy.

Mills said the problem was there was no way for the housing department to determine how far someone could commute and still be at class daily.

Regents said 60 miles was the most reasonable distance that a student could commute from on a daily basis.

Mills also said the housing office would work with students who wanted to commute from a further distance if they only had class once or twice a week.

The second change was focused on the amount of hours a student had acquired before they came to MSU.

According to the housing website, a student had to accumulate 45 semester hours of academic credit prior to the first day of classes for the housing contract period, before they could move off campus.

Mills said some incoming freshman were coming in with as many as 30 hours, which meant that logically after one semester they were allowed to move.

Now the policy states a student should have 45 semester hours of college academic credit as a post-high school student prior to the first day of classes for the housing agreement period.

It is also made clear hours gained in high school will not be counted towards this policy.

“Now students may need to spend at least three or more semesters in on campus living,” Mill said.

Mills said he believes this will enhance the students’ experiences they have in college.

These updates will be put into action starting fall of 2013.

“Any new students in the fall of 2013 will be affected by the new changes.”

Luckily these updates will not affect current MSU students.