Slight threadjack here...Does anyone know what is prompting this? Ensign's farqing up or what??? Seems like an odd policy to implement for no apparent reason.
I'll try again since no one wanted to believe me a few months/years back...
The Q was recently renovated (thanks to Ivan and Dennis) which means it has significantly more rooms available than before. Low occupancy is a bad thing for money, so...
This is my guess. When it happened when I was a student, it was the same thing. Occupancy got too low so they mandated residence.