Students who live in Residential Life housing no longer have to pay a fee in order to stay in the dorms over winter break.

Rob Wild, vice chancellor for student affairs, noted that this change has been in the works for a while because of the infeasibility of going home for some students, particularly those who reside outside the country.

“We’ve been talking about doing this for two years, about basically just staying open for winter break and not charging,” Wild said. “The primary reason is that international students and other students just aren’t able to travel home for winter break, and we just wanted to be sensitive to that.”

Previously, ResLife was unsure if this change was financially realistic, since some revenue did come through these extra charges, but this year, it was able to work out the monetary aspect of keeping dorms open.

Another concern was the maintenance that goes on between the fall and spring semesters, but after discussions with campus partners involved in maintenance, ResLife determined that this change was doable.

Sophomore Erin Egan, who plans to come back early for sorority recruitment, which is conducted before classes resume in January, felt that this change would benefit the student body as a whole.

“I think it’s very reasonable and convenient [to keep the dorms open for break] because a lot of students come back early for one reason or another, including girls involved in sorority recruitment,” Egan said.

Jeremy Pomerantz, a sophomore who will stay on campus for one night during break, felt that the revenues were the primary factor in ResLife’s previous decision to charge students to stay over break.

“I have kind of a pessimistic view,” Pomerantz said. “I think they just like getting money wherever they can.”

Although ResLife will be open throughout break for no additional charge, Wild said that not many students are expected to stay for the duration of winter break.

“Even though we are staying open, we don’t anticipate a large number of people staying over break,” Wild said. “We are still registering people so we can have the number of people who are here, but we just felt this was a good service to provide.”