<p>Also – Yale’s residential college system is a big draw, no question about it. And deservedly – it’s the optimal undergraduate experience in my view. Yale’s relationship to New Haven: not a big draw.</p>
<p>Chicago is not in a position to duplicate the residential college system, much as it might like to. That would require demolishing each and every one of its existing dorms, including Max and the one they haven’t finished yet, and building new ones with completely different designs. (Much more variation in rooms, many more facilities, dining halls everywhere.) Yale is talking about spending a quarter of a billion dollars to build about 1,000 new dorm slots in two new residential colleges.</p>
<p>If you’re not going to do that, having Hyde Park be a vibrant, interesting, attractive community is the way to go, not cloistrophobia.</p>