<p>[In Student Housing, Luxuries Overshadow Studying
by John Eligon
New York Times
June 14, 2013](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/us/in-luxury-student-housing-gym-tan-and-study.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/us/in-luxury-student-housing-gym-tan-and-study.html</a>)
</p>
<p>In an EXTREMELY small segment of student housing. EXTREMELY small.</p>
<p>The real issue is how overpriced the dorms are, not how students are choosing to save money by living in a nicer apartment complex.</p>
<p>D2 is opting for one of these next year. Maybe not quite as extravagant as some in the article, but QUITE extravagant compared to most beginner apartments and certainly the dorms.</p>
<p>It has a saltwater pool, chlorinated pool, private bedrooms, each with a bath, fully furnished, very nice rooms. Morning coffee bar with multiple flavors, game room with video games, chess, checkers, air hockey, pool, foosball, set up for beer on tap for parties, a library (really a big study hall type area), a gym, tanning beds (which she won’t use), sand volleyball court, large lawn area with outdoor grills, internet, cable, utilities included.</p>
<p>And if you budget for groceries, all of that is about the same cost as the dorms and a meal plan.</p>
<p>Im glad that the freshman dorms for my kids didnt even have televisions!
They had enough distractions!
;)</p>
<p>emeraldkity, yes…we made D2 stay in a dorm freshman and sophomore years. The freshman dorm was new and REALLY nice. Big screen TVs in common areas with video games, etc., but also study rooms, tutors that came to a special study center at given times and special programs for help for freshmen. </p>
<p>Sophomore year was honor dorm. It was an older dorm, but nice because it had individual air/heat controls per room and it was REALLY close to the Music building which was convenient.</p>
<p>Honestly, the apartment my D will be in next year was not her first choice. Her first choice was an unfurnished apartment right across from the Music department without all the fancy amenities…but alas…roommates won out.</p>
<p>Frankly, they will rarely have time to take advantage of most of that stuff. She stays swamped and lives in the Music building anyway.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Along with little to no maintenance. A lot of DD1’s flagship state dorms were built in the 50s and are awful because of maintenance. In Louisiana we had dorms built 100 years ago and after a refresh they were awesome.</p>
<p>She had a year of ‘dorm experience’ but dorms are simply too expensive. Luckily for us the ‘private sector’ flooded the market with student apartments and rents are pretty low ($500/month for private room and bath), right across campus, etc. </p>
<p>However, depending on where she ends up for grad school, dorm may be the only option due to lack of suitable off-campus housing…</p>
<p>My S stayed in one of these types of student apartment complexes last year. He never went to the pool or used the game room. It was right across from campus, so he could ride his bike to class, and the campus shuttle buses went through the apartment parking lot also. We liked that it was furnished with bed, desk, dresser, a few sofas and a dining table/chairs, plus washer/dryer. He got all A’s in his classes and was much happier being off the meal plan! So, not really a distraction for him at all. Exactly whose ‘concern’ is growing about this?</p>
<p>His freshman dorm never hosted faculty or had classrooms or lectures in it! His school doesn’t have the described ‘traditional on-campus residence halls’.</p>
<p>Only concerns I see with luxurious off-campus student accommodations other than increasing costs is the likelihood many of its inhabitants…especially those from sheltered higher SES homes may be in for a rude awakening when they find that starter apartment/house may be a steep drop off the cliff compared with the living standards they’ve grown accustomed to growing up and/or during undergrad. </p>
<p>Saw this with several folks from my own undergrad and other peer colleges with wonderful accommodations even within traditional dorms when they moved to cities like Boston and NYC and found themselves having to deal with the reality of multiple roommates in a dumpy cramped starter apartment. There were days I had to ask them to zip up the neverending whining and moaning over their “crappy situation”.</p>
<p>Then again, if there’s a demand and the colleges/students/parents are ok with it…have at it!</p>
<p>Cobrat, I know what you mean. D’s boyfriend actually warned her about that pitfall. “You know, when you graduate, you’re not going to be able to afford anything this nice. Nothing close. Enjoy the blessing, but know that it’s not ‘normal’” 
I think she’s actually looking forward to buying a small fixer-upper home soon after graduation, which is totally feasible here.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Luxury distracts students from their studies and represents something they have not earned but ought to be working towards (if they are materialistic). I’ll send my kids to college with cell phones and computers, which are quasi-essential but also provide plenty of distraction and entertainment, but why would I want them to have big screen TVs in addition?</p>
<p>Not exactly following your logic about how luxury distracts students from their studies…if a student wants to go to the pool, they’re going to go to the pool whether it’s at their own apartment complex or someone else’s. If a student wants to go tanning, they’re going to go to their local tanning salon.</p>
<p>Are you implying that any activity other than studying = distraction?</p>
<p>Beliavsky, many regular dormitories have TVs in common areas. In fact, I don’t think we visited one that did not.</p>
<p>And what about the luxuries they enjoyed in their parents’ home? They didn’t earn those. So should they not have any unearned luxuries there either?</p>
<p>Gruel is good enough, I say.</p>
<p>Ds school didnt have Tvs.
It was like quirky, academic summer camp, you don’t have television at summer camp!
;)</p>
<p>Pg: That’s very funny.</p>
<p>On that note, read Virginia’s Woolf when she compares the amenities of men at Oxford to women, and particularly a dinner for men and women. The Oxford boys used to have their own servants supplied by Oxford. Why should an earl’s son rough it at college?</p>
<p>To my mind the problem is the dissatisfaction of kids after they graduate and see the housing they can afford on their own starting salaries. It may not be such an issue in the warm climates some of the amenities listed suggest, but my D could not afford anything as nice as her very spartan Barnard single after she graduated. The Upper West Side is not the most expensive NYC neighborhood for sure, but Manhattan has a brutal housing market.</p>
<p>Her first rental was half of a one bedroom with one young woman in the bedroom and the other young woman in the living room. Fifth floor walk-uo in a dusty, ill-cared for building but home.</p>
<p>Now, she and BF have moved off into Brooklyn, probably never to be able to live in Manhattan again.</p>
<p>So, there is sadness when college housing exceeds the entry housing market.</p>
<p>Also, it seems to aggravate the town/gown divide when students live in luxury that the permanent residents don’t/can’t.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Too Anglo-American for me considering I grew up in a neighborhood with a sizable Latino population. </p>
<p>I can, however, live a long time on nothing but self-prepped Cuban style rice and beans. :D</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It may not be, but the UWS is one of the top contenders for that title considering the popularity and gentrification taking place there. I recalled reading in a local NYC publication that the UWS real estate market can be more expensive than the UES…and that’s the area where most of the rich families/kids I met/knew of growing up in NYC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For young 20-30 somethings, Brooklyn is arguably more trendy than Manhattan nowadays. Just witness Williamsburg, Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope(gentrified in the '80s), etc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good point. This was one critical factor in poor town-gown relations between my LAC and the local town when I attended. That and the college was the main employer for the region.</p>
<p>It’s misleading to use the blanket term “student housing,” which implies the colleges are heading in this direction. This is about private housing. </p>
<p>Adding to the “my kid” aspects: D1 lived in the more luxurious college housing 2nd year. To her, luxury meant laundry rooms on each floor and pristine bathrooms (the building is actually very nice.) She didn’t care that there were two flat screens on each floor, more that she liked the guys next door. Didn’t affect her one whit, the following years. Not even when she and bff lived in an un-renovated room and shared one 2-foot wide cabinet, as a closet. In that housing, the whole floor shared one shower, one toilet. I think the only complaint was they had to buy and replace their own bulbs for the overhead light. They made the best of each step. </p>
<p>In my community, this sort of private housing being discussed is predicted to be filled with rich international kids. The rest will choose to live per what matters more to them- proximity to classes and friends, safety coming home late at night, quiet (or not,) cost options, etc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is a concern, and we have deliberately stayed in a smaller house than we could afford (with only one moderate size TV) for that reason.</p>
<p>I live in one of these places. I don’t care about the jacuzzis, the pools, or the tanning booth (is that what it’s called?). What I do care about is that I get my own room, access to multiple 24 hour study zones with a ton of computers loaded with software like Mathematica, a shuttle that takes me directly to campus whenever I call for it, and that the entire place costs less than half (including utilities and food) than what a double room would cost in the dorms. Interestingly enough, my apartment complex, because of the aforementioned amenities, houses one of the highest proportions of upperclassmen engineering students.</p>
<p>Is this setting me up for unreasonable post college living expenses? Probably. But why should anyone care that I choose to live in a nice place that probably will end up costing less than my first post college apartment (and I worked for an apartment company so I know exactly how much this place would go for if it were located in a larger city)</p>