OK, It's rant time. Today's topic: College kids these days...

:rant:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0217asuresort0217.html

Campus living and the luxury-resort experience collide at Vista Del Sol, a new Arizona State University student-housing complex that has some parents thinking the kids should stay home, and mom and dad should go back to school.

"We have parents just shake their heads and laugh at the beauty and amenities," said Denise Giambelluca, American Campus Communities manager. "Vista Del Sol has almost everything - and then some - that a first-class resort has."

It has a huge, heated pool with cabanas and cooking facilities, basketball and volleyball courts, amphitheater, a community center with four tanning booths, a theater, billiards, ping pong and foosball tables, an 8,000-square-foot gym, yoga room, lounges and arcade games. Each fully furnished apartment includes cable television and Internet, faux-wood floors, lavishly appointed kitchens, large living rooms and full closets.

What. the. fuck. When I was in College I had a 12' x 10' room with cinder block walls painted this ugly off-white, that I had to share with a roommate. The heating system was so fucked up that in may rooms you had to crack the window a little, even if it was -10 outside, otherwise it was like being in an oven. The only rooms with A/C were those students who needed one for medical reasons. Each room had one Cable TV Hookup and Two internet connections which we had to pay extra for if we anted them activated. We had a community kitchen on each floor with a shitty electric range that didn't work right half the time, community bathrooms and showers on each floor, a fitness room that measured about 300 square feet, a nice group study room and a sauna in the basement. And guess what? I loved every minute of it. I didn't need a heated pool, arcade games, and individual bedrooms. I was content with sharing my little 12' x 10' slice of heaven with another guy, even if he did snored (Which is why I invested in earplugs.) and had farts that would give you cancer.

This was part of my college experience! It built character, dammit! We didn't need all this fancy pants luxury resort crap! What the hell is wrong with giving them the 12' x 10' cinder block room with the walls painted in a fugly off white? What's wrong with community bathrooms? What's wrong with just plain, old fashioned DORM ROOMS for the love of Mike?

This trend of luxury suite style dorms is nothing but fucking ridonkulous beyond belief. Let me tell you something, if a student makes his final decision on where to attend college based on how fancy the dorms are rather than oh, I don't know, the quality of the academic programs, then that student has no business whatsoever being in a university setting.

And now, my beloved alma mater is planning on making their next dorm building which they plan on putting up sometime in the next 10-15 years or so all suites like these. What a friggin waste of taxpayer and tuition/fee money.

I agree with the OP!

Unless these kids are wealthy to start off with, the grim reality will set in after graduation to find out what it really costs to have a lifestyle like this.

If you're just at school to party (and maybe score a diploma) it kinda makes sense that you're going to pick a school based more on fancy dorms than on something academic.

Or cable TV or Internet (they didn't exist then), or a refrigerator, or even a telephone. We each had a tiny closet and a tiny desk along with a single sink and a mirror. Hot plates weren't allowed in the rooms. There was a communal bathroom and shower, and one telephone out in the corridor. Each floor had a lounge with a stove and a refrigerator. No exercise room, swimming pool or sauna. There was just a dingy recreation room with a black and white TV and a ping-pong table.

But I loved it because I didn't have to live at home under parental scrutiny. Once I unloaded my first roommate, a fundie who kept trying to get me to go to Youth for Christ meetings, I had a great time.

I can't imagine college with such luxury.

except we didn't even have the fridge/stove thing on the floor. We were allowed 1 hotpot and 1 small fridge per room - not even per person. One or two phones per floor, etc.

I was lucky in that my parents were okay with spending a little extra for my room/board and I had a "double-single" room (a room meant for two used by just one).

No fitness area except in the gym and that was across campus - plus there was no way in hell I was going there when it was 20 below.

We had a rec room on the first floor with a crappy small tv.

And I had a blast! :P

"Fire hazard." It's like they wanted us to use tasty ethanol derivatives to keep warm.

She has a 10 X 12 with a roommate. btw, but it's too old to even be cinder block! (concrete and plaster)

and we had a phone in the room with the desk and closet stuff but no sink. And certainly no internet. Whatever there was back in the mid 70's was the divine province of the computer and math nerds.

I realize every generation has their hardships but jeezus, this stuff at ASU sounds pretty sweet.

FWIW, I'm in college now, and my dorm sounds about like your description. :hi: My idea of luxury is having air conditioning that works, and I was only lucky enough to get one after freshman year.

(And dude, you had a sauna in the basement? Nice.) ;)

One to towel yourself off and one to sit on. You really wanted to have at least something between you and those benches, considering what went on in that sauna. This goes doubly so if you saunaed in the traditional Finnish manner like I did.

I went to college in the early 80's and we were too busy drinking beer, smoking pot, and chasing girls to worry about that stuff.

I was in the military and the dorm room/area you described sounded just like what I had - and I shared a room!!! Except back then there was no cable, internet, etc! :o

That was a royal pleasure, let me tell you.

Dorms are a school racket aimed at people who are either too stupid to know better or too antisocial to have an easy time getting an apartment (my group).

I guarantee you, they'll pay a ridiculous amount for those rooms.

except I had to share my 10x12 space with *2* other people...yep my school was so overcrowded that I was tripled my Freshman and Sophomore years. I thought my junior year would be better when I scored a coveted spot in the new townhouses built on campus, except the builders were crooks and didn't finish them on time. So instead of 4 people in a 4 bedroom house we had 8...and those rooms were TINY!! and our pipes froze just about every week in the winter.

Finally my senior year they promised to put the normal alloted occupancy in the apartments and dorms, so we were lucky to actually get housing and when we did it was in a dingy old apartment building. It looked like it had never been cleaned in 20 years of operation and there was a giant hole in the wall inside the kitchen. I was certain that rats were going to come into our place through that hole so we did our best to make a temporary cardboard wall patch until maintenance came out and fixed it.

but dammit it built character!!! ASU is just coddling these kids, colleges are supposed to treat you like dirt, especially Res Life, dammit!!!

It won't last as long this time, I don't think.

that is the average undergraduate students "expect" to make after graduating from University with a Liberal Arts education :rofl:
I don't know where they get these ideas?

should they or their parents be able to afford it. And ultimately, the taxpayers are going to get their money back for these projects. With a full occupancy of 1866, they will easily bring in over $1m per month. To me that's a pretty good ROI that will ultimately benefit ASU when the contract expires and the property transfers to the ownership of the university.

As for me, I stayed a whopping one day in a dorm room and it was the most disgusting living situation I have ever been in. My parents are fortunate enough that they bought a nice condo for me to live in during my undergraduate years. Afterwards I moved out and they sold it for a profit that paid for my tuition and ultimately made my parents some cash.

The dorms might build friendships, but I sure didn't have trouble making friends living outside the university either.