[Lil' Hannah]

Here's another question - do the chapters own the house outright or does the university own them or what?

I know my chapter's house was on university owned land and do believe the house itself was owned by the university as well. this was good because we're getting renovations in 2005 (they're basically gutting the house and redoing the interior) and the university is paying for a lot of it, if not the whole thing. also, the university did our landscaping, cut our grass, etc. it was bad though because rent was soooooo expensive. The KD's and AOPi's on our campus owned their houses (not sure about the land) and had dues that were significantly lower than ours.

Having a house is a double edged sword, because while it's nice to have a "home base" for your chapter and also allows the women to get to know each other a lot better, it seems that it can cause a lot more unnecessary drama living with 40 of your sisters all the time, and it's also sooooooo much more expensive. our dues were almost $3000 a semester if you lived in house. Even if you don't live in house you pay parlor fees, a small portion of rent (you do use the house for meetings...) and a small portion of the meal plan. I have friends at smaller schools with no houses that paid $125 a semester!