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Colleges move out of the dorm business
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University of Louisville sophomore Gno Williams pays $600 more per semester to live in two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen in Bettie Johnson hall. He works two jobs to help pay for it.
Freshman Whitney Arion has a private bedroom and bathroom in Bettie Johnson hall. It costs almost $3,000 per semester -- almost $700 more than a standard double room.
Kai Ryssdal: Among the many rites of passage that college brings, the very first one might be the most shocking: the dorm room. Cinder block walls, bunk beds, showers down the hall, learning to live with a bunch of complete strangers.
For students nowadays, that's just not cutting it. But sprucing up real estate isn't exactly in a lot of college budgets these days. So schools are turning to private companies to give dorms an extreme makeover.
From the Marketplace Education Desk at WYPR, Amy Scott reports.
Amy Scott: Last fall, the board of trustees at the University of Kentucky in Lexington took a tour of the campus dorms. They were shocked to see rooms like this:
Matt Longacre: We've got a closet and two windows, but you can almost -- can almost touch both walls when you reach across.
Matt Longacre is director of Patterson Hall. It was built more than a century ago. The room is about the size of a Volkswagen bus.
Longacre: Part of the reason this room is empty is because nobody wants to live in a space like this.
The average dorm at UK is almost 50 years old. Group showers, concrete block walls, dingy carpets. After their tour, the board ordered a massive overhaul.
Angela Martin: They said this had to be a priority.
Angela Martin is treasurer at the University of Kentucky.
Martin: If we want to recruit and retain top students, these students are coming from homes where they've had their own bedroom, their own bathroom, and the thoughts of sharing a bathroom with 45 other people just is not appealing.
The state university -- squeezed by budget cuts -- couldn't afford a wholesale upgrade. So instead the school decided to lease a chunk of land to a private company called Education Realty Trust. EdR will build and manage two new dorms and share the profits with the university.
Martin: The developer can build it cheaper and operate it cheaper -- even with building in a profit. This is what they do.
If it all goes well, EdR may eventually replace most of the university's 6,000 beds and add 3,000 more. Now, if this were 'Extreme Makeover: College Edition' this is when people would start shouting.
“Extreme Makeover” clip: Move that bus! Move that bus!
And a giant bus would pull out of the frame to reveal brand new luxury dorms. But they're not built yet. So I went to see another dorm built by EdR at the University of Louisville, about an hour and half drive to the west.
Teresa Crum: We are in the lobby of Bettie Johnson Hall. We have two fitness rooms and a TV room as well. If you walk out the other side of the lobby you'll walk into our pool and patio area.
Teresa Crum is community manager for the EdR dorms. With mottled tan wallpaper and pink and purple carpet, Bettie Johnson Hall feels more like a hotel or retirement home than a dorm. Students live in apartments.
Knocking sound
I find freshman Whitney Arion sprawled on a couch watching MTV.
Whitney Arion: I wanted to live here because we get our own rooms, our own bathrooms, a nice little kitchen, and a living room area where we can lounge whenever we want to. It's just like being at home.
She shares the kitchen and living room with a roommate. The bathroom is all hers, decked out with zebra print shower curtain and bath mat. The dorm is co-ed. But the privacy seems to attract a lot of women.
Gno Williams: Bettie Johnson? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They known for the cute girls. Another thing I enjoy about living here.
Sophomore Gno Williams says he works at Taco Bell and Foot Locker to help cover the bill. His double with a shared bathroom costs about $600 more a semester than a traditional dorm.
Williams: I was like, either I can get a smaller dorm and have a little bit more change in my pocket, or I can like live in a nice dorm where I'm happy and be broke. So I guess I chose broke.
Plenty of students -- or their parents -- are making that choice. University of Louisville President Jim Ramsey says the privately run dorms are pretty much full. And he says they've helped his school attract a different caliber of student. The average ACT score of incoming students is up. So are graduation rates.
Jim Ramsey: At the end of the day it all ties back to what we're trying to accomplish academically. That is recruit the very best students, have them on campus, and engaged in campus life. Because that's going to increase their academic performance and get them to ultimately graduation.
Students may not even notice if a private company takes over their dorm. They still have student RAs and campus events like any dorm. But when college students act like college students -- punching holes in the walls to hang their flat-screen TVs or spilling beer all over the rug -- then the difference becomes really clear. The folks who come to clean it up will be from EdR. The university is out of that business.
I'm Amy Scott for Marketplace.
The "$600 more" figure isn't correct. While the cost of the actual apartment/dorm may be $600 more, in the dorms you are forced to purchase a $2920 meal plan (and the overly priced campus food that goes with it). You are not required to have the same plan in the off-campus private student housing, which makes this option cheaper in some cases.
Kids are so spoiled these days. I spent my first two years in similar dorms with the "gas chamber" showers. As freshmen, we were required to. I remember everyone kept their doors open during the day and people would just walk up and down the halls to visit. It was a great way to make new friends and get situated to living away from home. By my senior year, we moved into suites like what they're building now. I noticed that interactions between people dropped dramatically. Most people just lock themselves in their rooms. Going back to campus to visit, I still notice this, only now with lower-classmen. It's a sad state of affairs.
One of many reasons the amount of student loans has gone up. At $600 a semester, if they stick to a four year plan (and many are not these days) that is $4,800 in higher costs.
What I find interesting is that the University claims that it can't build a building, take care of the place and break even. But a private company can on top of making a profit that it will share with the University. Basically the University is announcing that it is incompetent but you should still come and learn there.
I spent my first two years of college in dorms that were built when Clemson University was still a military school. The dorms were male only. The walls were made of sheet metal and painted military beige. The rooms were the size of large walk in closets. The shared bathrooms and showers were habitats for insects. They were hot in summer and freezing in the winter. Each night the hoots and howls of young men would fill the building as games were played in the halls. Fights, drinking, games, and the occasional studying took place.I would never trade that experience for one of these over managed, aseptic, generic buildings. These dorms may be nicer, but students are missing the experience.
