That CMU single doesn’t look THAT bad. One friend’s single in a Boston area private U was likely 3/4ths the size of that room at best.
And some Boston area apartments I’ve seen renting for $1000/month back in the early '00s were so much smaller that it barely had room for a small bed/cot…and not much else. It gave new meaning to the phrase “walk-in closet”.
Heh!
Talk about changing priorities compared with when I was attending college nearly 2 decades ago. Unless one attended school in year-round hot weather areas like parts of the South/SW, most dorms banned window A/Cs unless one had a doctor’s note and that was mainly for those taking summer classes.
Most dorms also banned microwaves and other kitchen appliances as “fire hazards”. IMO…it was mainly about saving on the electric bill and to discourage undergrads from cooking too much and leaving messes to clean up at the end of the semester/year.
No one in the dorms I lived in/visited substituted store bought furniture for what the school’s dorm provided. Most of us students and our parents didn’t feel it was worth the bother. Especially those of us who felt the furniture/dorm accommodations were far better than what we were used to growing up*.
- Incidentally, some well-off undergrad classmates who felt our dorms were too spartan had serious adjustment issues after college as most found their first post-college urban apartments to be even more spartan than our dorms. And those apartments were far better than the first post-college apartment I rented in JP which even several relatives who were used to harsh living conditions from childhood considered "a dump". Hey....it was cheap and available without a need for a co-signer so it worked.