Why Students Need Off-Campus Housing

The biggest thrill of our teenage years was shopping for extra-long sheets and moving into our first dorm. We’d be away from the tyrannical rule of our parents. Our underage drinking could be slightly less clandestine. Finally, we’d be independent adults.

After a year of showering in flip-flops and narrowly missing our RA while we were toting a garbage bag full of empties, we decided living in a dorm was basically being at summer camp for nine months out of the year, and that it was time to really grow up and get an apartment.

The Globe reports that the age-old practice of getting off-campus as fast as possible is dying, thanks to high food and energy prices. But to us, it’s just proof that today’s college students expect to be coddled.

Back in our day, living in a dorm was like residing in a gulag. The small rooms were painted cinderblocks, furnished with metal bunk beds. We shared a bathroom with 20 people. It made us desperate to take our first baby-step into adulthood by moving into an apartment with some friends.

Now, colleges are building luxury digs to make parents and students feel better about paying tuition. Listen to this description of a new Boston University dorm.

[A] 26-story dormitory slated to open next fall will feature air-conditioned rooms and high-speed Internet and cable television.

So today’s upperclassmen are receiving amenities grown-ups have to buy luxury condominiums to get, and they’re insulated from the skyrocketing price of oil and food.

These students are going to be in a world of hurt when they graduate, have to pay back the loans they took out to live in their swanky dorms on an entry-level salary, and find they can only afford a mouse-infested six-bedroom in Allston when they split it with eight people.

Photo from Emerson College web site