INTRODUCTION

Fascinating, less known fact in the life of a student seeking college education in a city distant from home and parents in his experience as a room- and- board resident. He becomes a tenant of boarding house. Often without other student resident- boarders.

His entire sojourn as a student- tenant is an interesting evocation of his life off- campus life and vivifies one other side of his transformation as a person. It is as much an essential part of his growth no less than the vistas of new knowledge he meets inside the classroom.

Here, against the backdrop of a transition home- away- from- home, he encounters new human relationships, cultivates new friends and acquaintances, learns life’s many a struggle and sacrifice. His passage as a form dweller, in time, either makes him the better for it or none better.

Past and present observations of student boarders in the city of Naga indicate that a significant majority come from distant towns of Camarines Sur and from even other provinces outside the Bicol region. Most of them seek board and lodging in which they pay a monthly rate, although quite a number pay for room or for bed space only without provisions for meals.

City boarding-houses, not surprisingly, are located near school campuses. Thus, student- boarders often choose boarding places closer to their schools. The reason is economic; school short distance from boarding houses save time and transportation fare. Any savings are thus added values to student boarders who cannot afford the higher cost of the few, often elitist, student dormitories in the city.

There is paucity of information concerning conditions of boarding houses in this city, particularly private homes catering to board and lodging needs of students of the Naga College Foundation. As the student population grows every year. There is more and more demand for room- and- board facilities. The demand however is not matched by the rise of new boarding houses, so that present ones have to make- do with the situation. The result often enough are boarding- houses, ill- prepared to handle the problem of congestion.

Naga College Foundation in their boarding houses are as much the social concern of the school administration. The school is an extension of the home. Students, whether resident- boarders are not, impose a social duty upon the school and its faculty to look into their problems.