Last weekend’s Mega-Kegger Bust might just be a first step in Hamden’s ability to take back control of its town and off-campus students not a moment too soon given the Quinnipiac of the last few weeks.

While the beer party faithful numbered more than 300 (some say a new record), a few of them were actually arrested. Imagine. And maybe, just maybe, Quinnipiac “administrators” will follow suit by invoking a couple of sanctions of their own. Among such university-served “punishment” could be asking some of the revelers to change their living arrangements from the dormitory to the greater environs of Hamden while still being allowed to attend classes. How traumatic.

Consider: Such ill-conceived “punishment” can only mean two things; one: the tuition revenue generated by these badly behaved students is so valuable that Quinnipiac is choosing to compromise its policies and a significant opportunity to fix what is wrong there. And two; the place continues to overbook in pursuit of the all important tuition dollar, be it extracted from a poorly behaved student or one in good stead.

So, it follows, this intentionally created housing shortage (pulling as much tuition bounty as possible) becomes a flimsy rationale for why students have to go elsewhere to live even when (if not especially when) they are banished for bad behavior. Conveniently, Quinnipiac’s internal judicial process can classify these bad guys as not quite bad enough to merit expulsion.

Interestingly, this economic/behavioral segregation merely exports the school’s most pervasive of problems to just slightly outside its gates while it continues to receive “bad student” tuition revenue without the cost of housing this newly-formed class of commuters. That responsibility is left to the Hamden area landlords, only the small minority of whom are profiteers.

The real profiteer? The Q. With improved law enforcement, Quinnipiac might just have to begin to change the rules of its “off-campus housing as punishment” shell game. Maybe.