'Amenities arms race' turns campus life into the lap of luxury - LA Times

[MattSh]

There's a water park at Texas Tech, a campus steakhouse at North Carolina's High Point University and a 293,000-square-foot indoor beach club on the main campus of the University of Missouri, replete with lazy river, whirlpools, waterfalls and waiters. All of which raises the question: college or country club?

For the last decade, colleges across the U.S. have been tricking out campuses to compete in an amenities arms race aimed at attracting prospective freshmen. Free tanning, bouldering caves, gourmet dining and luxury fitness centers are not uncommon. At MIT, students housed in Simmons Hall enjoy PS3 gaming stations and Roku access in every lounge, a ball pit and private bathrooms.

Closer to home, residence halls at Pomona College offer smart-home technology, solar heating and a rooftop garden with a movie screen. Nearby, the romantic Spanish Colonial dorms at Scripps College are consistently voted "most beautiful" in the nation. Chapman University boasts the tallest university-owned rock wall in Southern California (51 feet), and UCLA just opened Bruin Plate, one of the country's first health-themed dining halls.

It's not home away from home. It's better.

"I think we can go through a list of amenities that 20 years ago would have seemed shocking on a college campus," says Robert Franek, the Princeton Review's senior vice president of publishing and lead author of "Best 379 Colleges." "You can call it an amenities arms race, but it solidly fits into the idea of campus culture and what we expect there."

Complete story at - http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-college-amenities-20150718-story.html

[KamaAina]

1. 'Amenities arms race' causes tuition to skyrocket - KamaAina

along with other factors like the proliferation of administrators.

[msongs]

2. and then the pampered indulgent "students" complain about the cost lol nt

[rogerashton]

3. I was visiting a SLAC

(Selective Liberal Arts College) which will remain unnamed, but which is located in a scenic area. My host was showing me the athletic facilities and commented "We just price it out as a luxury resort and throw in the education for free."

He was joking. Of course.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. But don't dare waste any money hiring faculty!

Not to real, full-time, career jobs, anyway.

I mean, why do people go to college ? To learn stuff ? Pfffft ! An awful lot of them treat college as four years of prolonged adolescence spent socializing with their peers. And as long as they get their hands stamped "employable" their parents are happy to pay, no questions asked.