For the most part, the properties in question have been in the university’s possession for several generations. For example, the one-block area with the shared backyards referred to upstream were formerly faculty housing. More recently, Wesleyan swapped a property belonging to an African-American church for another half-acre owned by the university a little further from campus. Middletown is not suffering from a housing shortage.
It is…but when universities buy up housing, it can reduce the local tax base, making the college even more expensive for the local residents. It’s a tough call because schools often improve the neighborhoods…but it usually comes at a cost.
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Ok, well that doesn’t sound so bad, but the way you phrased it, “the university has taken full advantage of the more robust housing market available in a small city relative to a small town by buying up single-family homes” made it sound like they had just bought these homes. Converting former faculty housing to student housing is not a big deal. Not sure about the church.
True. That’s a constant point of contention between town and gown. What usually happens with these small lots is that Wesleyan winds up putting them back on the market once they approach the end of their useful lives as student housing. An interesting transaction and probably more illustrative of your point was the recent acquisition of an office park a few blocks off the beaten path, but still in “downtown” Middletown and a convenient place to centralize the university’s development, alumni relations and business offices. I’m sure it involved the removal of tens of thousands of dollars from the city’s tax rolls. But very few people are alive today who remember that the same building originally housed the company known as American Educational Publishing (AEP) whose flagship product was “My Weekly Reader” and the chief source of Wesleyan’s wealth for much of the 1950s and 60s. The university had sold both the company and the building to Xerox in 1965. Insofar as real estate in Central Connecticut is concerned, the story seems to be “what goes around comes around.”
I remember the Weekly Reader – a highlight of elementary school!
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I thought the WU housing was fascinating - can’t remember from our tour anymore, but didn’t all the WU owned houses in the community have a particular signifying marker - like a red door - that indicated the house was campus? We had fun looking for WU homes 
My daughter found it a bit disingenuous, though, to call living in those houses “on campus.” - sure, it was college owned, but while some were sharing backyards, others were more scattered, and it didn’t feel like living “on campus” at all, but rather like living in town, but with the university as your landlord.
In the town where I live, which also hosts a mid-size university, the gripe is three fold as the university purchases houses: (1) loss of tax base (as mentioned);(2) pushing university employees who would like to purchase houses close to the campus so that they can walk or bike to work further out, or in direct competition with the university for purchasing nearby homes as they become available; (3) loss of income from local landlords who would prefer to have the $$ from college renters in their pockets than the university’s.
It does have positive impacts as well, though, including stabilizing property values in nearby neighborhoods, reducing town/gown conflicts over student sleep schedules (ie, not asleep at 1:00 am), etc.
I just did a random search. I don’t think the red door thing is entirely true. But it’s a cute idea. 
A big negative from the single tenant lease is that a roommate can be assigned and you have no control, and no one to complain to about the dirty dishes, the mess, the parties. My daughter’s friend lived in one and at first she was all by herself. Soon a person moved in who wasn’t even a student. This women let all kinds of people into the apartment, stole her food, and was not nice. D’s friend was scared and spent all of her time locked into her room. I think the other woman did finally leave (or was evicted).
The upside is you are only responsible for your own rent, but there are plenty of downsides too. Lots of stuff like the parties not allowed in the dorm or easily handled by a complain to an RA.
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My older daughter never lived in a university-run dorm in her four years, nor did she have a university meal plan. She lived in a privately-run dorm freshman year which, even though it was old, had nicer and bigger rooms. The dorm had its own dining hall/plan. At the time, it was only a couple hundred more than living in a university dorm (and it was more conveniently located than the freshman dorms).
My younger daughter is at a university in VA where not every dorm has AC (they add it as they renovate the older dorms). She and her freshman year roommate were high on the list and were able to choose a dorm with AC. She was off-campus in an apt this past year but will be back on campus in August, living in her sorority house, which does not have AC. While there are a few warm weeks in August, it does cool down relatively quickly and there’s a tried and true system to keep rooms cool with box fans in the window. I don’t think anyone’s brains are broiling. Now if there were non-AC dorms in Florida, brains would be broiling.
We did not have AC in my dorm at my college in upstate NY, and there could be some very hot days in August/September. We made it work with fans and quickly forgot about it once the 100 inches of snow started falling in November.
I mentioned this risk above, which is similar to a dorm room. Being off campus removes a level of authority, which most see as a positive. As your friend’s daughter experienced, that freedom comes with risks.
We wanted no parts of off-campus housing when looking at schools for our kids. Guaranteed 4-year housing was a big focus in our looking at schools. It could be that my wife and I spent a combined 5 years off-campus in college, and we didn’t want to deal with some of those issues as parents.
Guaranteed housing, with options between dorms and apartments, with a high number of single rooms was our goal. In the end, 75% of our kid’s college rooms were on-campus singles.
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Sure. While Wesleyan’s been pretty savvy about not acquiring too many properties at one time (if for no other reason than to keep the sales prices from spiking), the biggest acquisitions by far coincided with the enrollment of over 1,000 women students following co-education. And, for the record, the university was not averse to taking advantage of the massive waves of urban renewal that were changing the face of bigger Connecticut cities to the south:
The Wesleyan Argus | From the Argives: The Epic Highs and Lows of the History of Junior Village
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On the other hand, having had to deal with real-estate agents, leasing offices, guarantors, signing up for renters insurance, plus various utilities for gas/electric/water/internet/phone (and paying their monthly bills), was a highly valuable exercise during junior/senior year in college (even though the college had guaranteed 4 years of housing).
When the next step was the you’re-an-adult “hands-off” environment of grad school, or just regular employment a few states over, my daughter was already well-versed in managing the process herself, without creating added anxiety/stress while setting of completely alone in a new city.
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Don’t many colleges intentionally set aside specific dorms for first-years, to foster community building, etc. In that case, housing lottery perks for upper classes wouldn’t matter?
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Last year we went on a tour of Holy Cross near Labor Day and even the library had no A/C! They had all the doors open, giant fans everywhere and it still seemed like a sauna. I thought geez kids can’t even get a break in the library!
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That’s why there are movie theaters and the frozen food section of grocery stores.
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The utility companies aren’t really the issue…it’s the roommates. Which bill is in whose name? I don’t have an air conditioner, so why should I pay the same amount for electricity? Who needs premium channels on the TV… I watch everything on my computer.
Kids having to figure out utilities following graduation is one of the great problems to have because that means they’re out of the house!
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Hopefully they thought of agreeing how to divvy up utilities before teaming up to rent a private apartment together (or rather, chose compatible suitemates). If not, then college is the perfect time to learn that good friends do not always make good suitemates.
For me, the same thought applies as during High School, where you gradually extended their leash over 4 years if you wanted them to be able to function in college.
So during the 4 college years, after the initial hand-holding to get them settled as first-years, it’s good for them by junior year to have to act as the adults that they are, and start working out real-life issues, while still having college resources to fall back on (and I still have parental leverage to exert).
So does graduating 
At some schools, there may be a freshman quad or all freshman dorms, but many, especially LACs that encourage socializing among classes (great for mentoring as well as for making a school feel bigger as you aren’t limited to friendships in your year) have several years in one dorm.
Leaving school for any reason sort of ends the on/off campus debate…
I still see the 6 people I shared a house with in the 80s every year for a football game. We all agreed on cost allocation, but getting them to pay their share of the electric bill back then was a monthly struggle.
Not “having money” when the bill was due didn’t make them bad people… just poor financial planners. But as you pointed out…it was a highly valuable learning experience for all of us…right?
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I’m at the age that my temperature comfort level is the Costco dairy room.
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