Both types exist. Although the multi-user type tend to be 4-6 stalls, not 12. And the shower stalls are individual with curtains or doors, not the junior high gym showers of yore.
Well then I’ll say it. Co-ed bathrooms are way out of bounds. As a parent You have a right and a responsibility to be concerned.
@yourmomma Why do I have a responsibility to be concerned?
@yourmomma, are your bathrooms sex segregated at home? 
Why, @yourmomma? Presumably one would wear a robe to the shower. What exactly is the concern?
I remember reading in the Fiske guide 30 years ago that American U. had coed bathrooms. I thought it was freaky then, and I still think so now. This is a phenomenon that is driven by ideology, not the comfort, convenience or safety of the students.
Honestly, if the concern is sexual assault, try googling “student assaulted in college bathroom.” You’ll get essentially nothing. I did and what I found was a few news stories about men attacking women in designated women’s rooms but not a single story that referenced gender neutral or coed bathrooms.
“This is a phenomenon that is driven by ideology, not the comfort, convenience or safety of the students.”
And what ideology is that, praytell?
Do you really think so many colleges (and there are many) would continue the practice if students were objecting or if there were safety issues?
Hmmm. At my college (Brown), we had coed bathrooms in the '80s. This has been around for a long time. Took a little getting used to, but really, wasn’t a big deal. The only adjustment is that you couldn’t walk out of the shower stall buck naked - you learned to grab your towel or robe and put it around you before you walked out.
When my floor voted to make the bathrooms coed over 30 years ago it was because the men’s bathroom was at one end of the hall and the women’s was at the other. No one, male or female, wanted to have to walk all the way to the other end of the hall in the middle of the night.
It’s usually the parents that are uncomfortable with it, but the kids seem to be fine with it. We had the same thing at S’s college, and it was no big deal for the students. They actually voted for it. There may be other dorms that are set up differently with separate bathrooms so you’d have to ask the admissions office whether those options are available for freshman.
Dead wrong. The main thing driving this is economics, with a sprinkling of student convenience. Older dorms that are not yet ready to be replaced were by and large designed for communal, single-sex bathrooms. But comparatively few students want to live on single-sex floors, and it would be prohibitively expensive to build or retrofit existing bathrooms to provide convenient bathroom options to everyone. Demonstrably, a large majority of students prefer deciding where they want to live and spend the night (sometimes two different decisions) over having single-sex bathrooms.
Many colleges try to offer single-sex floor arrangements if students want them. But colleges desperately need to fill up every available bed. They can’t offer unlimited single-sex options, because that might result in empty beds. And as other posters have noted above, even single-sex floors or dorms may vote to make their bathrooms available to everyone, because in fact everyone is spending the night there. That’s not ideology; it’s the world.
The one piece that has a smidgen of ideology is the current focus on transpeople and people of undefined gender. A further benefit to college administrators of not trying to maintain separate bathrooms by sex is not having to listen to the endless whining that would provoke from people who are not easy to categorize by sex (and their friends) and by people who are not happy with accommodating the self-designations of others. From an administrator’s viewpoint, you can’t lose if your decision both saves money and takes you completely out of a politicized debate. That’s not an ideological decision, it’s a consummately bureaucratic decision.
Meanwhile, this is a big issue only among parents on forums like CC. If their children really had trouble living with the coed bathrooms that exist in the world, if there were any real problem with health or safety, things would change quickly (and expensively). But there isn’t a real problem. And there are literally thousands of women who would be thrilled to take the OP’s daughter’s place at MIT and therefor to cope with MIT’s bathroom allocation.
Also: Families use co-ed bathrooms every day in normal life. It’s really not that weird.
I’m not sure alot of families have dad in the shower and D brushing her teeth in the same bathroom. Believe me if I had a D and that D did not want to shower, pee and brush her teeth in the same room as a guy I would encourage her to choose a single sex dorm or suite situation. I would not be saying “oh honey don’t be a prude.” Not everyone has to bee all the same. Not everyone has to brush it off and say, oh my the guys on the floor are just like my brothers. I doubt real brother is showering in the bathroom while daughter is brushing the teeth in many families.
These days there might not be a lot of brother and sister in the bathroom at the same time. My mother was one of 9 kids in a house with one bathroom. Probably happened there.
My college dorms had doors with latch locks on the shower stalls. Behind the door was a changing area with a bench and then the shower. So you could get fully dressed before exiting if you wanted to.
“I would not be saying “oh honey don’t be a prude.””
No one is suggesting that the OP push the D into a situation she doesn’t want, with or without slurs. Posters are suggesting that the parent back off and follow the D’s lead in choosing a dorm style.
And it’s fine if kid and Mom discuss this, particularly if the kid wants to discuss with Mom.
If anyone is going to call the school with questions, it should be the person who will actually be living in the dorm.
x2.
I’d be really embarrassed if my mom called my college to ask about bathroom arrangements.
All I’m saying is to please not comment in ways that feel dismissive of the OP’s feelings. I totally agree for the D and Mom to talk to make sure they are both on the same page. I don’t think it much matters who asks the college the question. My second son said he absolutely would not attend a uni where he had to live in housing with communal bathrooms. I didn’t dig into his reasoning as it really doesn’t matter why he felt that way…bottom line that was a deal breaker for him. I asked sometimes if freshman were guaranteed suite style living if they wanted and sometimes my son asked. If you are both on the same page then there is no reason to be “embarrssed.”
[quote]
Why do I have a responsibility to be concerned? [/quote}
It’s your kid.