At my school, you are required to live on campus for the first 2 years. Fraternities also count. If you are involved in more than one officially sanctioned activities, you can move off after the first year. We were allowed to have cars, though.
If you have family within 25 miles or something, you are exempt (this is somewhat easy to fake, from what I hear). If you are over 21 for your first semester, married, have kids, or have some type of disability, you are exempt.
Oh, and meal plans are required for anyone living on campus.
Anyway, going back to the OP, I was in the same situation, but for wood working (hard to fit a table saw in a dorm). It sucks, but there is nothing you can do without doing it elsewhere. My first two years were miserable, and I went back to my parents' every other week or so. It gets so much better when you get out of the dorms.