Should Universities Regulate Student Behavior On Campus?

Across the country different universities and colleges have different rules, and regulations for their students. However, upon further investigation it has been noticed that there is a sharp divide between the rules and regulations of public, and private schools. For example the University of Virginia (UVA), a public school, and Brigham Young University (BYU), a private school, both have very different standards to which they hold their students. This paper will spend time looking at the positives and negatives of both approaches, before coming to a conclusion as to what extent universities should regulate student behavior on campus. Let’s imagine a student, named Suzy, is a freshman at the University of Virginia where she is taking 15 credit

BYU would handle this situation much differently than UVA would, because BYU has faculty and staff monitor students behavior, not students. BYU’s choice to have faculty and staff oversee student behavior has both positives and negatives.

One of the benefits the system at BYU is that because they are so strict students know exactly what they can and cannot do, and what the consequences to breaking the rules are likely to be. Furthermore staff has more authority than students do, and because of that their words carry more weight, and students are less likely to repeat the same mistake again; because of this there are probably less disciplinary actions that have to take place at BYU.

Conversely, there are some negatives that come as a result of BYU’s system of student regulation. The main negative is that because they are too strict students are more likely to slip up in the beginning of their college career. This means that unless the university forgives some mistakes many students may carry tarnished records as for the rest of their time at BYU. Continuously by being so stringent about the rules some students may rebel, and cause problems for more