Posh dorms, amenities becoming the norm on college campuses

Associated Press ^ | September 14, 2007

[Puppage]

These kids will be helpless when reality smacks them upside the head someday.

Indeed. Nowadays it's all about keeping their fragile self esteem intact.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Why not just hire a surrogate to attend college classes, write papers and take exams? College can then be nothing but a non-stop party at Mom and Dad’s expense.

[radiohead]

I went to Michigan in the 70s. You could get laundry service and one dorm had maid service. Vendors sold loft beds and you could get someone to put them together. I rented a fridge and when my son went, he had a fridge and microwave. My roommate brought a tv and stereo. Life was good.

I don’t see any of this as the end of the world. When I went to school I took a typewriter and a radio; kids these days take their computer, mp3 players, tvs, etc.

I had the chance to go back and visit my old freshman dorm room. It was more packed with stuff than mine had been, but it looked like the normal stuff a young person would have in their room at home. The republic will survive. The kids will learn discipline and sacrifice when they start paying those student loans. : )

[longtermmemmory]

Universities are the only business where the end product has no warranty of merchantability.

You get a degree that is essentially worthless because it really only matters who you know in you selected line of work.

Imagine if a student loan could be discharged in bankrupcty and a university lose money for graduates who can get a job.

[gridlock]

You get a degree that is essentially worthless because it really only matters who you know in you selected line of work.

An elite degree just means you were smart enough to be admitted to an elite university. Employers just hope they didn't damage you too much while you were there.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I went to UGA in the 60s/70s and the dorms for men had communial bathrooms, basic furniture, no refrigerators, kitchens, or TVs.
My Son graduated from Georgia Tech in 98 and his dorms (after Freshman year) had shared private baths, kitchens, refrigerators, shared living rooms with TV (I think privately owned). It was a big difference from my dorm room.

[Defiant]

My dorm room at Iowa was so cold we could freeze a can of beer just by leaning it against a window.

That's because they used Iowa grads to design and engineer the building.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You might be on to something. Iowa State does produce better veterinarians and dairy science grads.

[Defiant]

Sorry, Eric, I couldn’t resist.

[dfwgator]

Iowa State does produce better veterinarians and dairy science grads.

They obviously aren't producing any football players.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We’ll find out next Saturday in Ames, eh ?

[dfwgator]

Well seeing as how Iowa State has already lost at home to such powerhouses as Northern Iowa and Kent State, let’s just say, I think I’m favoring the Hawkeyes in that one.

[Guenevere]

My husband & I lived in 'married couples housing' when he went back to Georgia Tech for his Masters degree..

We had an old, old apartment on campus that had Palmetto bugs (cockroaches) the size of barns flying across the room...

When he was an undergrad his dorm was basic desk, chair, bed and not much more.

This was ahem a number of years ago.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Regarding Iowa engineers, I'll pass along a true story (I witnessed this.)
As the campus expanded, the university's power plant needed more steam and a larger chilled water plant in the 1970s. The staff decided to tear out two older chain grate coal units and replace them with Riley spreader stoker units. These stokers feature a traveling grate running from the back of the boiler to the front in an endless loop where, presumably, the coal had been burned and turned to ash, with the ashes dropping into the ash pit below the grate. A flipping mechanism (the spreader) tosses the stoker coal from the bin to the rear of the furnace. Some burns in mid air and most burns during the travel time on the grate.
Unfortunately, there wasn't room in the building for an ash pit on the front of the stokers since the old chain grates had dumped ashes off the back end. The engineers chained the direction of the grate so that coal flipped to the back and ashes dropped off the back end, causing an endless series of fires in the ash pit that almost burned down the power plant building. This was finally corrected by changing the size of the stoker coal and reducing the distance the spreader was able to throw the coal...

[Volunteer]

"My favorite was two liberal phoneys at law school who used to have serious discussions that they were going to make so much money, they would just have to put an extension on their homes and invite a homeless person to live there."

I work with one of their cousins. She gripes about how unfair tax cuts are in one breath and then brags about the huge house she and her "partner" (the man she married, but she will not use the word "husband" because she thinks it is sexist) in Madison, WI.

I am turning in my notice on Thursday of this week. I can't say I am unhappy about it.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Thirty years ago I thought my dorm was so cool! My daughter attends the same University but instead of being impressed she thought the dorm was a dump. Of course she has lived in two brand new homes where everything was "clean and shiny" so to move to a 45 year old dorm room was a let down to her.

She is in an apartment now that is nicer than our first home!

[battlegearboat]

I quit high school, took a GED, and Enlisted in the United States Navy in 1968.

I lived out of a seabag for the first few years.

It was a tremendous education.

What a letdown it was to enroll in college after my hitch was up.

I did the right thing and didn't spend all of Daddy's money.

However, I did hit up Uncle Sam for all he was worth.

[GladesGuru]

One may only hope the ‘amenities’ will offset to some limited degree, the sour taste of the collectivist faculty lectures.

[Tenniel2]

A pal of mine who was at Oxford in the late ‘70s (and eventually took a First in Classics) used to say that winters there were so cold that one had to break the ice in the sink basins before using them as urinals.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You earned it.