In the United States, private colleges often have campus police, who are employed by the school but are sworn law enforcement officers with full police power in a certain jurisdiction (which can easily extend beyond the campus). Colleges also have living areas for students, which are the home of the student while they're at school (if anywhere has a reasonable expectation of privacy, it seems like a dorm room would), although these are typically not leases.
Now: From what I can tell, US law says that if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy on some property, the owner of that property can't just give police permission to search it, nor can police ask the owner to search it. For instance, a hotel manager can't consent to search of a hotel room while the occupant is paying to rent the room. However, without a lease, the property owner can enter and search if they got the idea to do that.
In a university context, this seems to imply that a school administrator could search a dorm room for evidence of violation of school rules, but that city police would need a warrant or consent from the student. What's the rule for university police? Do they wear a "school employee" hat, which lets them search school property with permission from the school? Or do they wear a "police officer" hat, which (presumably) requires them to have a warrant? Or does it depend what they're looking for (so looking for drugs might need a warrant, while looking for space heaters might not)?
