@mom2coIIegekids and how did the University of Alabama pay for that lazy river? It’s all well and good to say that students love it, but Alabama is a public university which IMO has an obligation to keep costs low for in state residents. My concern is not that students enjoy it, I’m sure they do. It’s the cumulative effect this has on the ability of low income students to afford the school.
On the University of Oklahoma board there were a couple of prospective parents who bemoaned the state of OU’s gym. They compared it unfavorably to other intuitions whose fitness centers were state of the art and asked why Oklahoma’s could not look like that. Keep in mind that virtually every machine works, there are fitness classes at multiple intervals, and that the equipment rental service always has everything in stock. The expectations of parents and students are extremely high. In many cases, colleges are just responding to this demand.