I keep hearing about how college prices are going up, up, up, but then I also keep hearing about how colleges are building new and fancier dorms and gyms and whatnot. Consider this article:
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022511257_residencehallsxml.html
UW has just knocked down an old building in which dorm rooms cost $5000 or so per academic year for a new one in which dorm rooms will cost $8500 per academic year and will feature amenities like private bathrooms. That’s about $1000 / month! That’s completely nuts. I paid only $550 per month at Stanford, and for the record, no private bathroom. Somehow, as a 24-year-old adult, I was able to deal with sharing a bathroom. And yet, there are hundreds of people on the waiting list for the new dorm. Are these fancy new dorms being paid for with student loans? If so, that is just wrong, very wrong. Or, is there a two tier system with the wealthiest students living in the fancy new dorms and the financial aid students living elsewhere? That is wrong, too.
I admit that having a semi-private (shared with only a few people) bathroom is much nicer than a communal one. I lived in EV at Stanford because I didn’t want to go back to freshman year-like living arrangements in Cromem.
Either way, it does seem like the trend is to ditch old-school dorms in favor of what are basically on-campus apartment buildings. And I agree, just another way for the schools to get more money.
Hey Sarah – I think grad school is a little different since you’re basically an adult at that point, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for an adult to choose to spend more to live in accommodation that’s a bit nicer. EV was pretty modest, though! It’s not grad students you always hear about up to their ears in student loans, either, especially not the mostly engineering grads in EV. You might have made a different choice, also, if you hadn’t had a fellowship and were paying for your grad school with loans.