Spring break is almost upon us, and so is the moment when students must finalize housing plans for next year. And that means you can finally dump that roommate who snores too loudly, or eats your mother’s homemade cookies (Jeff). I’ll get a single-room, you say to yourself. Yeah, with so much more room for activities, like Monopoly tournaments, or standing backflips. It is a fine proposition, but it is finer still to review the pros and cons of getting a single-occupant dorm room before knocking on Sallie Mae’s door for a steeper loan.

Money is the first and chief hindrance to your acquisition of a single-room. At $5,904 for a nine-month stay, single-rooms are almost a full thousand dollars more expensive than the doubles most first-years and some upperclassmen occupy. Whether or not you foot this cost will be determined by how desperate you are for solitude, and solitude tends to be the motivating factor for students seeking these rooms.

Having a quiet space to oneself is a double-edged sword. Though privacy is a nearly unrivaled boon, it can also be harsh on sociable folks. There are moments during the long hours spent alone when this harshness manifests in a need for companionship. Or sometimes you just need a roommate to admonish you for gaming instead of finishing the essay that was due last week. Yes, you have to be your own mother to live by yourself. No one else will stop you from sleeping through six alarms, so getting a single is not recommend for the codependent type.

For many students, switching to a single means having a space that is wholly their own for the first time. This entails a situation in which the occupant is free to express their unique idiosyncrasies and manias writ large. For example: you can convert the room into a shrine to Barbara Streisand; you can tape pictures of your ex all over the walls with the eyes cut out; you can tend to the chili plant your mother forced you to take with you to school; you can line the back wall with stick-on mirrors so that sunlight filtering in is reflected back out in a fiery beam aimed at that jerk’s room across the quad in Peterson.

The last example is probably illegal, so do not, whatsoever, do that. But you get my meaning, in that the benefits of having a personal kingdom, within the bounds of Residential Life policies, can outweigh the costs.

Availability is another matter to consider. The bidding goes quick for these rooms, as everyone is eager to get their personal bear cave. Get them while the getting is good, but if you get beaten by the tiered application process, fear not. Rumor has it that Schilling will be converted into an all-singles hall next year, so keep an eye out for those opportunities. The downside will likely be that, due to a lack of space, tenants will be required to keep the extra set of furniture in their rooms. This might be a downside for some, but the advantage of having extra storage space should not be dismissed. All kinds of junk can be kept in another dresser, and I have the found the extra set of furniture to be a great advantage when organizing my own single.

Having lived in singles for three of my four years at Hamline, I can personally vouch for the joys of solo living. Take note, grumpy people: this option is for you. If you can swing it, eat the almost-six thousand dollars with the help of those rats at Navient, and reap the benefits of not walking in on your roommate with their significant other.