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August 24, 2007, 07:31 AM ET
High Living in the Dorm
The Los Angeles Times adds yet another chapter to the accounts of the country-clubification of the college experience. You’ve heard it here before, and now in the Times: Dorms are posher than ever.
The newspaper says: “The trend toward the four-star dorm is a convergence of several factors: a generation of students who have grown up sharing neither the bedroom nor the bathroom with siblings, parents who are accustomed to high tuition costs and don’t object to paying a few hundred more per month for better accommodations, and universities competing for enrollment and using posh new residence halls as marketing tools.”
For-profit developers, who have gotten in on the residence-hall game, are one of the drivers here, too, the article notes. Those students pulling up in U-Hauls will spend an average of $1,500 each this year to outfit their rooms.
The University of Southern California, the article says, “is trying to enhance the living experience by increasing student interaction with professors, some of whom live in apartments inside the residence halls.”
While the article thoroughly examines the trend, it’s short on analyzing whether all this consumption and comfort is a good thing. (Take a look at a Chronicle roundtable discussion in which this topic was brought up. You can also listen to the discussion.)
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