If you’ve been on a college campus recently, you may have noticed that college dorms have definitely changed since you went to college. Not to sound like one of those embroidered pants-wearing curmudgeonly alums walking around campus grumbling about how good we had it and how we had to walk ten miles uphill in the snow to get to class, but one thing really irks me—the luxury college dorms and amenities are ridiculous. Lazy rivers, granite counter tops, omelet stations, en suite bathrooms, free on demand cable. As a parent and tuition payer, I can’t help but wonder: have we all gone insane? Why are we funding this extravagance?
The absurdity of it all really hit me this spring when we toured the honors housing at a large public university. The prospective students and parents were shown into the college dorms demo suite. We parents all gazed, mouths agape, at the two bedroom suite: each room had a double bed, its own closet, and opened into a spacious furnished living space, with a granite counter kitchenette on one side, and on the other a granite counter double sink bathroom, with its own private shower and toilet (so your student is spared that nasty inconvenient walk down the hall to the communal bathroom).