@Sam-I-Am Also consider that for 75% of people moving out, the main reason they’re doing it is cause they never want to eat at the dining hall again. The other 25% are doing it cause their friends are, lol.
@Sam-I-Am : When my kids moved off campus, the ability to make their own food was a huuuuge plus for them. It was much less costly than eating in the cafeterias, and twice as healthy/good. If they didn’t want to pack lunch, they got a sandwich in one of the cafes. They did NOT miss the cafeterias at all. They did like Valois. So does Barack Obama.
The only downside was that it after the administration changed the swipes policy for full meal plan students, it became very difficult for RSO members to have dinner together. Before the change, on-campus students could swipe in the off-campus students; no one ever used all of their available meal swipes. After the change, with guest swipes strictly limited, the off-campus students never wanted to pay for crappy cafeteria food and the on-campus students didn’t want to pay to go off campus. So no more dinners together and a degradation of campus culture.
@HydeSnark : I am often mystified by the administration’s dorm construction plans. They keep building giant dorms without actually increasing the number of undergraduate beds available. The upgrades are fine, but they don’t seem to be doing anything about moving a higher percentage of students back on campus, and that’s something Boyer has identified as a goal for decades. (That I think it’s a bad idea doesn’t matter. He consistently identifies it as one of the most important issues for the university to address.)
The dorm beds to total students ratio remains around 53% over the past years. They have indeed built a new North dorm but reclaimed 5 satellite dorms at the same time. The net beds gain is about a couple of hundreds but the student body has increased too (from 1425 of class 2017 to 1591 of class 2020).
Maybe they know the ratio is about right. If they want to keep the students in the dorm they need to do a few things:
Make more singles - after the first year most students want a single (either apartment style or not).
Make meal plan flexible - after the first year many students want to have a significantly reduced meal plan.
There is some peer pressure on upperclassmen to move out. If more second-third-fourth years can stay in the dorm there will be less pressure to move out.
Definitely the housing market in Hype Park and freedom appeal to many upperclassmen but there are still many of them are reluctantly to move out after first/second year due to various reasons.
The point is, time and again the administration indicates that it wants to keep a greater percentage of undergraduates in university housing on campus. Over the past 18 years, it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on undergraduate dormitories, and it’s about to drop another $100 million more. And . . . there still simply won’t be enough high-quality slots to keep more than a handful of upperclassmen on campus, whether or not they would prefer to be there in a perfect world.
When the new dorm opens, there will be only one undergraduate dorm, holding about 200 students, that was built before 2000. But at some point they will have to build a big, beautiful new dorm that does not replace one or more old, substandard dorms. If they want to pass the tipping point where it becomes normal for students to live on campus all four years, they need to build two more 800-bed dorms, not one. (And don’t forget: Max P., like Pierce, is probably going to wear out its welcome very quickly. It was built on the cheap, and it’s nowhere near up to the standard of the dorms that have been built since then. It is going to need to be replaced or upgraded in the foreseeable future.)
@JHS Even with the new dorm, we’ll still have Snitchcock as well as BJ. Both long in the tooth.
It looks like the university is focusing on creating a more compact and unified campus now - the new dorm where Harris is now should serve this end, by adding some balance between South Campus and everywhere else - hence the closing of I-House and Stony Island. Capacity will likely be added later - especially with the massive capital campaign currently underway. I hope Max goes - between Max and the Reg, the Ellis/University/57th/56th block is an architectural monstrosity with Mansueto and Bartlett on the side. That’s my personal take, which is of course very subjective.
@eddi137 Agree with regards to the meal plan (bland chicken and fries get old quickly, and the healthy offerings are very limited). Haven’t seen much pressure on 3rd/4th years to move out, though (except from my pocketbook, that is) - I’m not sure that’s common to every dorm.
Cannot say all but I believe there is pressure on many 3rd/4th years because those upperclassmen tend to socialize with upperclassmen. Inside house or dorm they may feel a little bit awkward to be the only few old students there unless they are the paid RAs.
Snitchcock and BJ have many upperclassmen living through 4 years. One reason is there are many of them doing the same thing. However other dorms tend to have fewer these kinds of people. Maybe the house culture inside Snitchcock and BJ nurture the longer stay.
In addition to building the new dorms they need to figure out how to persuade upperclassmen to stay longer. If they can hold 80% of second-years, 40% of third-years, and 20% fourth-years they will achieve 60% dorm occupancy.
Agree with that Max is sort of old and not efficient land-wise. Its space can be used to build a dorm like North. It is not going to happen soon maybe 10 years later.
Sorry, forgot BJ.
House culture of Snitchcock has always produced longer stays, but for a small number of people. If that’s happening at BJ, that’s a relatively recent development.
Student I talked to today at the admitted student overnight said Bartlett is the place to eat now since they switched vendors from Aramark
Looks like DD will be moving out of South after her first year into an apt. Not my preference but her choice.
One of her group of 4 is on FA (apparently the only one) so is price sensitive in terms of the cost of the dorm. So they started thinking about looking at apartment living, found one, and seems headed that way. It will be cheaper by maybe 3K/year, which will be a <5% savings. Not sure that’s worth doing all your cooking and cleaning your bathrooms. But then, I stayed in the dorms for 3 years.
She doesn’t care for the cafeteria food but was planning on staying until this came about. As long as there is a financial incentive to move out, and apartments are not hard to find, I expect kids will be moving out.
But the FA will be reduced accordingly if a student moves out dorm-dinning hall. Maybe your student will save more than the FA student.
In my D’s situation of moving out the cost was not the reason but no available single was.
I don’t know what prices are like right now, but when my kids moved out, with all the costs taken into account they would only have saved about $500/year if you didn’t count having a place to stay for the summer. (Both of them spent the summers between 2nd/3rd and 3rd/4th years in Chicago, so they didn’t sublet their apartments and eat part of their rent.) But they got much, much nicer space than was available in the dorms – the older one and her housemate found a large, two-bedroom pre-war apartment with a kitchen, pantry, large living room/dining area, and sun porch, and the younger one inherited it a couple years later. And they affirmatively liked being able to prepare their own food, living among, as one put it, “real people, with jobs and children and dogs,” and having some separation between “work” and “home.” Like most of us. It was much quieter than the dorms, and much less drama, too.
IMO the opposite is true. I’ve heard horror stories about Aramark, but now that they’re gone Cathey and Baker both provide consistently good food across a range of diets/cuisines. For some reason, the quality of Bartlett hot dogs, burgers, and chicken is noticeably worse than at the other two dining halls, and vegetables are consistently, extremely average. Salad ingredients, fruit, and fresh produce in general, will be much better at Baker/Cathey - more options, and Bartlett’s selection doesn’t taste as fresh. The freshman 5 is real, and eating healthy is a lot easier when the fresh fruits/vegetables are good.
In Bartlett’s defense, the fries are good, they always have yellow apples, and I’m told the taco bar is great (haven’t tried it myself).
Generally, Cathey and Baker are the same dining hall. Cathey has a (delicious) pasta station, and Baker doesn’t, which is the main difference I’m aware of.
My ranking would be Cathey (good staples+pasta bar) > Baker (good staples) > Bartlett (low-quality staples)
With meal-plan inflation higher than any change in grocery prices, I suspect the difference may be greater now. Not that I’ve run the numbers - just a guess.
Wait, North doesn’t have a pasta bar??? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 
Where does one go to buy decent food (groceries, etc.)? 30 years ago there was just the Hyde Park Co-op which was awful. Hopefully some things have changed since then. I know they have a Target but actually they have problems on the grocery side (at least here in their home state of MN). Whole Food is there, right? (“Whole Paycheck”, LOL, so too expensive). What other grocery options exist there now?
Treasure Island (where the co-op used to be, but much nicer), Open Produce, Hyde Park Produce, Valley of Jordan. Apparently there is a Whole Foods now, but it’s a long way from campus.
@JBStillFlying There’s Whole Foods (expensive), Treasure Island (“America’s Most European Supermarket” - yeah sure, also expensive), Hyde Park Produce (<3), this tiny cute store open until 2 am called Open Produce (nice, run by hipsters, but again…expensive), I guess there’s always Target, CVS, and Walgreens, but they aren’t really supermarkets.
Oh, and Kimbark Liquors.
We were in Treasure Island last week. My wife said the price and selection was comparable to Jewel (a large Chicago grocery chain - similar to Albertson and Safeway) So it is not a food desert. We live in the suburbs and obviously our choices for groceries shopping are more robust but Hyde Park right now does have more venues than the awful HP Co-op as @JBStillFlying recalled in the 1980’s.
Anyone remember the A&P? Got to go back to the '70s for that I believe :>