Over the last two years, the Iowa State Department of Residence (DOR) has been quietly making some large changes to the policies involving contract breaks and the Greek system.

Usually, first-year students who intend to join a fraternity spend the summer going through the recruitment process and their chapter assists them with the process of breaking their DOR contract with minimal penalty if they want to live in-house their first year. Sorority recruitment traditionally happens during the week of move-in, so most first-year students in sororities don’t live in-house.

However, new DOR policies are slowly, but surely, changing the landscape of this process and increasing the difficulty for both students and chapters.

There are two major policy changes in question. First, the extended deadlines for residents moving into Greek housing to cancel without penalty have been moved from the 2016 date of August 1 to July 15 for 2017, and to an even less friendly date of July 1 for this year.

Additionally, this year saw the removal of a commonly used penalty exemption allowing students to break their contract, in which their penalties reduced from 50 percent of the total value of their housing and/or dining contract, to 15 percent.

Many fraternities budget money to help their newest members break these contracts and live in-house their first semester. With the change in penalty reduction, it is no longer feasible for fraternities to budget the amount of money it will take to break housing contracts. If they are unable to fill their chapter facility, fraternities could find themselves with financial problems.

It’s concerning that the DOR is rushing first-year students into making a residence decision. A month can give prospective fraternity members the chance to come to Ames, tour the houses, meet the leadership and make an informed decision about which fraternity to join.

The removal of the penalty exemption also raises questions. Even with the exemption, students were paying a significant amount of money. The 2017-2018 DOR Terms and Conditions list maximum values of $1265 for housing and $690 for dining.

However, that pales in comparison to the full penalty that all students who don’t manage to break their contract by the deadline face; 50 percent of the total value of their housing contract and 80 percent of their dining contract. That could be in excess of $4000 for housing alone.

The smart decision now appears to be forgoing the chance to live in-house for a year; forgoing the chance to forge bonds that can sometimes last a lifetime. The Department of Residence needs to ask itself: Is depriving students of this opportunity worth squeezing a few more dollars out of them?