“Up a Lazy River” is the song that comes to mind. There’s no floating through college. It’s work, for sure with lots of downtime, socializing, entertainment. But the non-classroom facilities are far less important than what goes on in class.
The most important consideration for our son was to go to a college where it was safe to be a thinker (i.e., the academic focus), preferably in a major league city (as in major league sports). He attended UChicago. He got well off campus a couple of times a week, including attending major league baseball and basketball games. On-campus facilities – other than the library – didn’t matter to him.
Our daughter, too, was more focused on the city than on the campus. She wanted to attend an art college preferably in a real city, and preferably in the east. The campus? Didn’t matter except for the quality of the labs, workshops, and studios. She attended RISD.
Nope - some of their campuses have really nice features but it certainly wasn’t even close to the most important aspect of the decision
Considering the importance many here place on visiting campuses, it should be no surprise that college marketability is influenced by having nicer facilities that make a good first impression to visiting prospective students.
How many students and parents here would choose a college with strong academics and lower cost but with economy class facilities over a higher cost college with nicer facilities?
Depends on who is paying an how much. With subsidies for some students, not everyone would bear the increased costs proportionally. Parents may have a different answer than students in some cases.
No doubt though that a lot of colleges have been on a big marketing blitz in recent years. Spend a lot of money on libraries, student unions, rec facilities, etc. to make that good first impression. I haven’t yet visited a college campus that didn’t have at least one major construction project (and no doubt I have visited only an extremely small fraction of them) and many have multiple construction projects going on at the same time. Not everyone is drawn into those types of things but apparently the belief is that many are.
One reason many colleges have built up leisure facilities and decorator dorms is to compete with the off-campus suppliers of housing that has special amenities. IOW, it’s a response to competition in local housing markets. That’s certainly the case in the college town that I live in.
By and large, colleges want the students to use facilities on campus, to have ready access to classrooms and labs and recreational facilities. Keeping students in on-campus housing is a key part of this strategy. Many students, of course, like the feeling of independence that they get by living off-campus – including lower scrutiny of their smoking and drinking habits.
However, at many larger mostly-residential campuses, it is typical for mostly frosh to live on campus, with most residential students living in nearby off campus housing in later years.
At many colleges freshman were in fact required to live on campus. I think it’s a good idea. But from my own observation in midwest college towns the universities have tried to provide better oncampus facilities to encourage students to stay more connected with the campus. They may even have done “retention” studies (studies of graduation rates) that showed higher graduation rates of students who have more such connections.
Some universities also have “residential colleges” in liberal arts or sciences that promote a sense of community among students concentrating in certain areas, as well as greater out-of-class contact between student themselves as well as with faculty and other staff.
Here’s one example: https://lsa.umich.edu/rc
Here’s another: https://housing.virginia.edu/residential-colleges
I’d note that lazy rivers are actually not “luxurious resort” amenities but a feature of many down-market water parks. They just aren’t all that unusual in real life, IDK why anyone would choose a college for that.
The schools I have seen with building booms have not been trying to compete with off campus options (which have been what I would call your typical college dumps with location, location, location ruling the day). They have been competing with other colleges.
Requiring kids to live on campus is typically justified by better retention/graduation rates though coincidently it also results in a lot more revenue to the university. Some have even outsourced the costs of the dorms/facilities and let other entities manage them.
“Requiring kids to live on campus is typically justified by better retention/graduation rates though coincidently it also results in a lot more revenue to the university. Some have even outsourced the costs of the dorms/facilities and let other entities manage them.” Yes. Co-residence is very important to retention and graduation.
And it also makes a lot of money for the colleges and universities.
Yes, living on campus as frosh is associated with higher graduation rates.
But note that some on-campus living requirements exempt non-traditional students and traditional students (presumed to be) living with parents within commuting range. For example: http://www.housing.sjsu.edu/housingaz/freshmanoncampushousing/
My kids both went to highly selective colleges, and while both have had something of a “building boom,” they are building labs, new (non-lux) dorms for an expanding student population, interdisciplinary academic spaces, etc. To me, that’s money well-spent. Not a climbing wall nor lazy river in sight.
I don’t have luxury features at home. Why should my college kid get something I can’t have?
The colleges also require certain groups of students to live on campus so that they can more accurately forecast cash flow to finance these building projects.
If the big ticket items --academics and finances-- are similar, why not make the final decision on the little things that make the college experience complete? A million dollar swimming pool in the shape of a buffalo? Why not. A library that rivals the NYC library? Fine. Plumbing that actually works? A good thing.
My daughter had a certain look she liked but her decision was based on academics and finances. If she then like the school with the symmetrical buildings rather than the ‘Old Main’ look of some schools, I didn’t care. If she wanted a suite style living situation, that was fine.
Interestingly, one of the primary reasons my son has JMU highly ranked in the pecking order is because of their amazing UREC center. He’s extremely active because he finds that it helps to relieve stress, and he realized early on that exercise served to keep him focused academically. I never thought of it as a “country club” amenity, but I could see how some would.
Full pay students are most likely to have lived with these kinds of amenities growing up (maybe not lazy rivers in their backyards!). Many private colleges also have made efforts to provide luxury amenities with improvements to recreational and residential facilities and dining options. There are so many choices for students that sometimes it might come down to these types of extras. One college sent us a brochure with the tagline “Dorm Rooms like Palaces”. This is very attractive to DD as she would love a large suite style room with a walk-in closet. The college is also academically respected and has a brand new stem center with state of the art equipment. Every college on her list has nice dorms & great food and all are academically appropriate for her. There are so many choices even after the schools meet the academic and fit (size, location, budget) requirements, the rankings of the facilities/amenities were an easy way to take schools off the list. Schools know that facilities are now part of the equation especially when attracting students who are full pay. Public schools want to attract these kinds of students too. I’m not sure I agree with saddling the students of public schools with fees to provide these luxury amenities because we need to have affordable options for all types of students.
@ucbalumnus Our family would and we definitely have