Do colleges eat tremendous losses every year while providing student housing?

[miragesyzygy]

For example, Columbia's Room fee/year is around 5.5k, which is fairly standard among colleges, even though it's in Manhattan. I just looked at some apartment postings in Morningside Heights, and most are $1500 monthly or higher.

So for someone attending for 9 months, he'd pay 13.5k on average living in an apartment, while he saves 8k by opting for Columbia's student housing. How does Columbia afford this for all its students, year after year?

[OldGuy]

Well for one thing, Columbia may not pay property tax to the city for this property. I'm pretty sure they don't for their undergraduate housing. They might on units that are more like apartments that they rent to graduate students.

But I suspect the main reason is they don't need to make a profit on their units. Since they are giving scholarships to many students, they could well be subsidizing the housing as well. Students do not pay all the costs of their college education.

It also may be advantageous to their "marketing" to not have their housing look comparable to those at other schools since students presumably compare costs when making decisions on where to go.

[Dewey Finn]

First of all, where did you get the number $5,500? I just looked, and Columbia's housing rates (http://housingservices.columbia.edu/content/overview) start at over $6,500. And that's per person for shared housing. Presumably more than one person might live in an off-campus apartments, which makes the comparison very different.

[sitchensis]

I would also look to the price per square foot. I spent one semester in a dorm at Washington State University. I can’t remember the numbers, but the price per square foot was exorbitant. The only semester I had to take out loans was the one I was in the dorms.

[GreasyJack]

Yeah, I know housing is bad in Manhattan, but I'd like to think for $13.5k you get a little more than a room the size of a sailboat cabin you have to share with another person.

[dontbesojumpy]

colleges rarely "eat losses" on any facet of their university structure.

the whole design is to make money and schools are often particularly good at it.

[Dewey Finn]

By the way, don't forget that whatever you're paying Columbia in housing fees is on top of the $41,160 tuition, $2,144 mandatory fee and $2,805 estimated cost of books and other miscellaneous expenses.

[Superhal]

The kicker is shared dorm rooms. When I was in college, the prison cell style dorms were 2 per room, with a shared bathroom with another room (4 people.) The "good" dorms had 2 bedrooms, 4 students, per room.

[Thudlow Boink]

colleges rarely "eat losses" on any facet of their university structure.

the whole design is to make money and schools are often particularly good at it.While some colleges and universities are for-profit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_school) institutions, most are not, and it is inaccurate to say they are designed to make money.

[Cyberhwk]

I would also look to the price per square foot. I spent one semester in a dorm at Washington State University. I can’t remember the numbers, but the price per square foot was exorbitant. The only semester I had to take out loans was the one I was in the dorms.Yeah, but when I went that included your meal plan too.

[Darryl Lict]

Also, they probably paid off the mortgage a hundred years ago, so their costs are probably only maintenance.

[Rigamarole]

I don't know about Manhattan, but around here (SoCal) the rooms at Cal State are pretty outrageously expensive. They charge the students something like $650/month to share a bedroom in a 2-bedroom apartment with three other roommates. That's $2600/month for a freakin' mediocre 2-bedroom, while even with our high real estate prices you can get something much nicer for that (like, a house) in the nearby vicinity if you were to go on your own.

[Dewey Finn]

Of course if you rent off-campus, you're probably committed to a twelve-month lease but you only need the place for the nine months you're in school. But aside from that issue, my experience was similar; off-campus housing was cheaper than the university housing. Which is why I was surprised by the OP.

[Little Nemo]

Many colleges make it mandatory for students to live in college housing for at least their first year. I figure that's strong evidence that students could find more economical alternatives. If college housing was really a bargain, they wouldn't have to make students live there.

[mhendo]

While some colleges and universities are for-profit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_school) institutions, most are not, and it is inaccurate to say they are designed to make money.
While universities themselves might not be "designed to make money," and most are non-profit institutions, they are generally very concerned about income and about their economic well-being. For perfectly good reasons; if they go broke, they might have to close their doors.

While universities might not be in pursuit of a profit in the same way that a corporation is, they are well aware that maintaining sources of income is essential to their long-term survival, and plenty of universities see dorm rentals (compulsory in some cases, voluntary in others) as a good way to add to the institution's income.

When i started grad school, my university, John Hopkins, required that all freshman undergrads live in the dorms. A few years later, the university added a bunch more dorms, and it is now required for both freshmen and sophomores to live in university housing. The only exemption to this rule is for those who come from the Baltimore area and who can commute to the university from the house of a parent of guardian. And that doesn't cover a very high percentage of Hopkins undergrads.

Rates for a double room start at $3,575 per semester, and go up to $4,000. Single rooms start at about $4,100 and go up to $4,500. Freshmen are also required to purchase a meal plan, which is $2,680 per semester. Semesters at the university are under 4 months long, including move-in week and finals week.

So, a student in a double room is paying about $900 per month to share a room for sleeping. A student in a single room is paying over $1000 per month. Plus almost $700 a month for food. And both involve sharing common areas, bathrooms, etc.

When my wife and i left Baltimore two and a half years ago, we were renting a two-story, three bedroom rowhouse with basement, about four blocks from campus, for $1,300 a month.

I don't know exactly what Columbia's situation is, and rents are obviously much higher in New York City than in Baltimore, but some universities make good income from their on-campus housing. This money is not profit, per se, but it is money that the university can then use for other things.

[Voyager]

colleges rarely "eat losses" on any facet of their university structure.

the whole design is to make money and schools are often particularly good at it.

Pretty much all the University of California schools I know of kick students out of dorms after the first year. The University of Maryland started kicking students out also, not so quickly, though. I suspect they aren't making tons of money or they could use some to build more. Still, even though I had a nice single for two years when I was in college, it was nowhere as big as my first apartment.

[installLSC]

Pretty much all the University of California schools I know of kick students out of dorms after the first year. The University of Maryland started kicking students out also, not so quickly, though.
How do they kick you out? Do they only allow freshman to stay at dorms?

[mhendo]

Pretty much all the University of California schools I know of kick students out of dorms after the first year. Depends on the school and what their ratio of rooms to students is. Here in San Diego, UCSD guarantees housing for two years to every incoming freshman who wants to take advantage of it.How do they kick you out? Do they only allow freshman to stay at dorms?That's basically how it works. If there are spaces left over after freshmen have been accommodated, upper classmen might be offered spaces, but generally you're on your own after your freshman or sophomore year, depending on the university.

It's not that they actually kick you out. Everyone gets kicked out over summer anyway. It's just that they put new people in the rooms at the start of each new academic year.

It's worth noting that there are plenty of four-year institutions in the United States that offer no housing at all, or very, very limited housing. Many are commuter schools, where the vast majority of the student population is from the area, and comes to campus every day by car, bus, train, bike, or on foot. In Australia, where i did my undergrad work, the number of on-campus housing spaces is generally very small compared to the size of the student body as a whole, and most students commute from their parents' house or from rented off-campus accommodation.

[RealityChuck]

Yeah, I know housing is bad in Manhattan, but I'd like to think for $13.5k you get a little more than a room the size of a sailboat cabin you have to share with another person.No, the Columbia housing is a great deal. A few years ago, I toured the school with my daughter and they said that nearly all undergraduate students live on campus (the only exception were those who lived with relatives in NYC). They can't get apartments for what they pay for housing at the college.

[shiftless]

After my son's first year in the dorm he wanted to move into an apartment with his friends. After looking at options it turned out that he could get a very nice apartment with his own room, parking, lanundry etc., adjacent to campus with something like $500 a month left over for food for the same price as in the dorm with the full meal plan. Plus, the apartment covered 12 months. The dorm was only open for 9 months and they kicked the kids during breaks. Somebody was making a whole pile of money on dorm rental.

[Rigamarole]

Plus, the apartment covered 12 months. The dorm was only open for 9 months and they kicked the kids during breaks. Somebody was making a whole pile of money on dorm rental.

I've always wondered why they do that though - it's not like they're renting them out short-term to wayfarers during the break. Obviously there are operating/maintenance costs, and I suppose enough people want to leave during the breaks that they've determined it not to be worth it to keep them open, but it seems like there are also enough students who still need a place to live that it would be profitable to keep them open year-round.

[Duke]

I've always wondered why they do that though - it's not like they're renting them out short-term to wayfarers during the break.

Actually, some are. I'm on the organizing committee of a conference which is being held at a university in New York City (not Columbia, though). The university will be renting dorm rooms to attendees of the conference. It's much cheaper and convenient for us, and the university makes money on a dormitory which would otherwise be vacant.

[KarlGrenze]

I've always wondered why they do that though - it's not like they're renting them out short-term to wayfarers during the break. Obviously there are operating/maintenance costs, and I suppose enough people want to leave during the breaks that they've determined it not to be worth it to keep them open, but it seems like there are also enough students who still need a place to live that it would be profitable to keep them open year-round.

Some students that tell the housing facilities early on that they'll need summer or break living accomodations are allowed. Sometimes (at least my UF experience) they were told they'd have to pay extra and/or move from the dorm they'd stayed most of the time.

Also, over the summer, many of those dorms are used to accomodate students attending camp, summer school, or freshman orientation weeks (with their families).

[mhendo]

Actually, some are. I'm on the organizing committee of a conference which is being held at a university in New York City (not Columbia, though). The university will be renting dorm rooms to attendees of the conference. It's much cheaper and convenient for us, and the university makes money on a dormitory which would otherwise be vacant.Yep.

When i first arrived in the US, over 10 years ago, i made a two-week stop in Madison, Wisconsin to do some research at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and i stayed in a room in the UW dorms.

It was cheap, clean (although not luxurious) and a short walk along the lakeside from downtown. There were plenty of other people there too. Some were individuals like me, while others were there for conferences or meetings.

[Little Nemo]

I've always wondered why they do that though - it's not like they're renting them out short-term to wayfarers during the break. Obviously there are operating/maintenance costs, and I suppose enough people want to leave during the breaks that they've determined it not to be worth it to keep them open, but it seems like there are also enough students who still need a place to live that it would be profitable to keep them open year-round.As others have said, some colleges do rent rooms during the summer. I stayed in a college dorm once during a trip to Toronto.

There might also be legal issues involved in having students live in a room over the summer. It might change their status from student residents to legal tenants or something and give them occupancy rights.

[Acsenray]

my university, John Hopkins

John Hopkins? John Hopkins? Tsk-tsk-tsk. Did you really go there? :p

[Wesley Clark]

I always thought it was the other way around. I went to college in the midwest, and my younger brother had to attend dorms the first year (I did not because I was a transfer student). I think his cost was about 5-6k over 9 months for rent and food coupons. For that he got a dorm about 100-250 sq ft (can't remember, about the size of a bedroom) that he had to share with a roommate made of concrete with no air conditioning.

After that the two of us got a 900 sq ft 2 bedroom apartment that was about $650/month for rent and utilities split between 2 people. And we got our own private bedrooms, plus the heating/cooling system was much better. Per person it was only $325 each per month.

The dorms seemed like a ripoff where I went. They had a better location. But they were much smaller, no privacy, worse utilities and more expensive than off campus living.

It might be different in high cost of living areas. But like Nemo said earlier, if they were such a good deal I don't think colleges would force first year non-transfer students to stay in them.

[Chronos]

Quoth Superhal:The kicker is shared dorm rooms. When I was in college, the prison cell style dorms were 2 per room, with a shared bathroom with another room (4 people.) The "good" dorms had 2 bedrooms, 4 students, per room. Even a shared bathroom with another room is a pretty good deal: Most dorms I've seen have no bathroom connected to the room at all, just one big communal bathroom down the hall shared by a couple dozen rooms. And no kitchen facilities either, of course.

[Thudlow Boink]

But like Nemo said earlier, if they were such a good deal I don't think colleges would force first year non-transfer students to stay in them.Possibly, but not necessarily. I can think of other possible reasons why a college might require some students to live on campus:

(1) It's a good deal if the dorms are full (or nearly full), but if fewer students live in the dorms, the college has to charge more per student.
(2) The college feels that dorm life is an important part of the college experience that they want their students to have.
(3) They want to encourage all students, especially freshmen, to participate in extracurricular activities and get involved in campus life, which they're less likely to do if they don't live on campus. They don't want the campus to become dead at night and on weekends, so that there's nothing to do for the students who do live on campus.
(4) They want to avoid the extra traffic congestion or competition for parking that would occur if most students drove to campus every day.

[Fretful Porpentine]

Possibly, but not necessarily. I can think of other possible reasons why a college might require some students to live on campus:

(1) It's a good deal if the dorms are full (or nearly full), but if fewer students live in the dorms, the college has to charge more per student.
(2) The college feels that dorm life is an important part of the college experience that they want their students to have.
(3) They want to encourage all students, especially freshmen, to participate in extracurricular activities and get involved in campus life, which they're less likely to do if they don't live on campus. They don't want the campus to become dead at night and on weekends, so that there's nothing to do for the students who do live on campus.
(4) They want to avoid the extra traffic congestion or competition for parking that would occur if most students drove to campus every day.

IIRC, there's also some research that links living on campus with higher grades and greater likelihood of remaining enrolled. Anecdotally, it's been my experience that students who commute seem to be less likely to have a support network of friends on campus and more likely to drop / stop / transfer out.

[kenobi 65]

When i first arrived in the US, over 10 years ago, i made a two-week stop in Madison, Wisconsin to do some research at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and i stayed in a room in the UW dorms.

Do you remember which dorm you were in? I lived in the Lakeshore Dorms for all four years of my undergrad work at Madison. :)

[kenobi 65]

Most dorms I've seen have no bathroom connected to the room at all, just one big communal bathroom down the hall shared by a couple dozen rooms. And no kitchen facilities either, of course.

That was the case in all the dorms at UW-Madison when I was there in the 1980s. Nearly all of the dorm rooms were shared by 2 people, with a communal bathroom for the entire floor (even in the co-ed dorms, every floor was single-sex). The newest of the dorms had been built in the 1960s; the oldest in the 1920s.

While I was there, they built a small, new dorm, which was specifically for honors students, IIRC, which had private bathrooms.

[appleciders]

Many colleges make it mandatory for students to live in college housing for at least their first year. I figure that's strong evidence that students could find more economical alternatives. If college housing was really a bargain, they wouldn't have to make students live there.

Possibly, but not necessarily. I can think of other possible reasons why a college might require some students to live on campus:

(1) It's a good deal if the dorms are full (or nearly full), but if fewer students live in the dorms, the college has to charge more per student.
(2) The college feels that dorm life is an important part of the college experience that they want their students to have.
(3) They want to encourage all students, especially freshmen, to participate in extracurricular activities and get involved in campus life, which they're less likely to do if they don't live on campus. They don't want the campus to become dead at night and on weekends, so that there's nothing to do for the students who do live on campus.
(4) They want to avoid the extra traffic congestion or competition for parking that would occur if most students drove to campus every day.

IIRC, there's also some research that links living on campus with higher grades and greater likelihood of remaining enrolled. Anecdotally, it's been my experience that students who commute seem to be less likely to have a support network of friends on campus and more likely to drop / stop / transfer out.

Just chiming in-- statistically, there's a strong correlation between living on campus as a freshman and graduating within four (or five) years. Correlation is not causation, but many colleges do buy into this. I'll see if I can dig up some cites.

That said, in my college experience, finances were a huge reason that most juniors and seniors lived off campus. It was a small town, so it wasn't difficult to get your own room in a house less than half a mile from campus for less than $350 per month. Personally, I lived alternately in kind of crappy houses and houses more than half a mile away, so I never paid more than $200 per month in rent.

[Dewey Finn]

Quoth Superhal:Even a shared bathroom with another room is a pretty good deal: Most dorms I've seen have no bathroom connected to the room at all, just one big communal bathroom down the hall shared by a couple dozen rooms. And no kitchen facilities either, of course.
How recent is your experience? Because my freshman year dorm had the communal bathrooms, but I've heard that they've since renovated the buildings to provide private or semi-private bathrooms.

[Kyla]

Pretty much all the University of California schools I know of kick students out of dorms after the first year.

I graduated in 2000, so maybe things are different now, but when I started at Santa Cruz, freshmen got guaranteed on-campus housing for all four years, although you lost the guarantee by moving off campus. I lost mine by doing my junior year abroad. (Looking for housing for my senior year was a special kind of hell, btw.)

[Voyager]

I graduated in 2000, so maybe things are different now, but when I started at Santa Cruz, freshmen got guaranteed on-campus housing for all four years, although you lost the guarantee by moving off campus. I lost mine by doing my junior year abroad. (Looking for housing for my senior year was a special kind of hell, btw.)

We have a friend who only got one year at Berkeley. Santa Cruz likely has two, UCSD seems to. It has gotten tighter in the past few years - the restrictions at Maryland I mentioned are fairly recent. I'm not aware of private schools who kick you out. Anyhow, one year or two, the point remains that if schools were making tons of money on dorms they'd not want to kick kids out of them.

[kunilou]

All I can say is wow! Columbia is really cheap. At my alma mater, the University of Missouri, base room and board is $8,600 per year (http://www.missouri.edu/about/mufacts.php). At my son's school, also a state school, but in an even smaller town, the cheapest R&B package is $6,990 (http://admissions.truman.edu/costs/cost.asp).

And that's for a basic package. That's your half of a 10'x14' room with two beds and a 3' foot closet, a common bathroom down the hall, and 19 meal-plan meals a week in the cafeteria.

My other son went to school in Chicago. He had a two-bedroom, four-person suite with bath. $8,700 per year.

[Voyager]

How do they kick you out? Do they only allow freshman to stay at dorms?

They just say there is no room. Easier than an apartment, because you leave over the summer anyway and are usually in a new room. When my daughter started at Maryland I think people could stay in the dorms for all four years, by the time she left they pushed out most juniors and seniors. She got to stay only because she was an RA.

I suppose that state schools don't have the money to build new dorms, and do want to increase enrollment to make some more money out of existing physical plant. That would lead to a shortage of dorm space.

In contrast my other daughter stayed all four years in a dorm at U of Chicago, Al Capone's hotel.

[Thudlow Boink]

All I can say is wow! Columbia is really cheap. At my alma mater, the University of Missouri, base room and board is $8,600 per year (http://www.missouri.edu/about/mufacts.php). At my son's school, also a state school, but in an even smaller town, the cheapest R&B package is $6,990 (http://admissions.truman.edu/costs/cost.asp).

And that's for a basic package. That's your half of a 10'x14' room with two beds and a 3' foot closet, a common bathroom down the hall, and 19 meal-plan meals a week in the cafeteria.

My other son went to school in Chicago. He had a two-bedroom, four-person suite with bath. $8,700 per year.I wonder if some of these schools take the same approach to room & board as they do to tuition: set it high, but be generous with financial aid for students who can't afford to pay that much.

[Dewey Finn]

All I can say is wow! Columbia is really cheap. At my alma mater, the University of Missouri, base room and board is $8,600 per year (http://www.missouri.edu/about/mufacts.php). At my son's school, also a state school, but in an even smaller town, the cheapest R&B package is $6,990 (http://admissions.truman.edu/costs/cost.asp).

And that's for a basic package. That's your half of a 10'x14' room with two beds and a 3' foot closet, a common bathroom down the hall, and 19 meal-plan meals a week in the cafeteria.
Yes, but your numbers are for room and board. The numbers I quoted for Columbia are just for the room. The estimated room and board total for Columbia is over $10,000.

[alphaboi867]

Quoth Superhal:Even a shared bathroom with another room is a pretty good deal: Most dorms I've seen have no bathroom connected to the room at all, just one big communal bathroom down the hall shared by a couple dozen rooms. And no kitchen facilities either, of course.

I would've gladly traded our 4-man suite's shared bathroom for a communal one if I didn't have to have a roommate. Sharing a room was the worst part of living in a dorm, right up there with the biweekly 2am fire drills and not having a kitchen. Only RAs got singles though.

[Eva Luna]

I would also look to the price per square foot. I spent one semester in a dorm at Washington State University. I can’t remember the numbers, but the price per square foot was exorbitant. The only semester I had to take out loans was the one I was in the dorms.

Seriously. I haven't been in the undergrad dorms at Columbia, but I spent the night once with a friend who was a grad student there. Her room was just about big enough to fit a twin bed and a teeeeeny desk, and there were shared bathrooms and very minimal shared cooking facilities.

My undergrad was at NYU, and I don't remember the specific numbers, but they priced the dorms such that it was a bit cheaper than splitting a studio apartment with a friend because of the aforementioned ability to have the dorm for just the school year vs. having to sign a full year lease on an apartment.

[Wesley Clark]

Just chiming in-- statistically, there's a strong correlation between living on campus as a freshman and graduating within four (or five) years. Correlation is not causation, but many colleges do buy into this. I'll see if I can dig up some cites.

That said, in my college experience, finances were a huge reason that most juniors and seniors lived off campus. It was a small town, so it wasn't difficult to get your own room in a house less than half a mile from campus for less than $350 per month. Personally, I lived alternately in kind of crappy houses and houses more than half a mile away, so I never paid more than $200 per month in rent.

That may be the reason then, I assumed it was mostly financial. But if the goal was to ensure that students were more likely to graduate it explains why transfer students like myself were not required to stay in the dorms.

Evenso, dorms offer less privacy and anemities compared to what you'd find off campus. So they are still financially unsound.

[kunilou]

Yes, but your numbers are for room and board. The numbers I quoted for Columbia are just for the room. The estimated room and board total for Columbia is over $10,000.

That would be the other son, in Chicago. Four-person suite with a small kitchen, no meal plan. $8,700.

[LateComer]

Anyhow, one year or two, the point remains that if schools were making tons of money on dorms they'd not want to kick kids out of them.Perhaps they kick them out to make room for freshman, money may have nothing to do with it.

I work in housing at a public university in Western Pennsylvania. I can't speak for all universities but some things about our operation:

We just completed a $270 million rebuilding of our halls (through a complicated public/private partnership (http://www.iup.edu/magazine/exclusives/page.aspx?id=77923) - state money just couldn't make this happen) to make them pretty much all suite style meaning that the most a student would share would be a bedroom and bath with one student. This was done to attract students who more and more do NOT wish to live in a 30+ year old traditional dorm sharing a bathroom with 40 other students. Our prices by my calculations for room and board combined (http://www.iup.edu/page.aspx?id=23035) would be a minimum of 3,261/semester (6,522/academic year) for a traditional room with the cheapest mealplan to a maximum of 5,471/10,942 for a private room with the most expensive mealplan.

One thing that surprised many of us as we built these new buildings was the sheer demand for these suite rooms. Some of us thought we would have trouble keeping them filled as long as there was a near half price option in the tradional dorms but the opposite is true. While it used to be that upperclassmen couldn't wait to get out of their contract and move off campus we often have them crying in our office if they can't get back into the suites once they have lived here their freshman year. Price doesn't seem to matter to most students. We have to limit upperclassmen spaces to about 1000 (out of about 4300) in order to guarantee all freshmen a spot (yes we have a residency requirement). I haven't studied the off-campus market but it is generally believed that our new buildings have created a bit of an arms race with private developers having to up their quality to compete. Of course rent doesn't tell the whole story, off campus may have to pay utilities/cable/telephone/internet and have to commute.

Housing here is an "auxillary" meaning that though we're part of the university our department doesn't get money from the rest of the university. We have to be self sustaining. "Make money" doesn't really apply at a state institution as all reserve money will eventually make its way back into the buildings or into programs or back into the university (especially if our governor is able to cut 1/2 of our state funding as he has proposed).

[MsRobyn]

I've always wondered why they do that though - it's not like they're renting them out short-term to wayfarers during the break. Obviously there are operating/maintenance costs, and I suppose enough people want to leave during the breaks that they've determined it not to be worth it to keep them open, but it seems like there are also enough students who still need a place to live that it would be profitable to keep them open year-round.

It's also easier for the university to do maintenance during the summer, when there aren't that many people living in the dorms. My university did the painting, plumbing and electrical work, and so forth during the summer so as not to disturb a lot of people. It's easier to paint when you know there isn't a dormful of kids breathing fumes.

[joebuck20]

I'm surprised to hear some of the numbers mentioned in this thread. I guess the price of room and board has skyrocketed in recent years.

When I was going to school (late 90s, early 2000s), I believe the cost for a single was around $4,000/yr, give or take a few hundred, and that included the meal plan. State school in the Midwest. A lot of students did move off campus, for various reasons, as soon as they got the chance. But I spent most of my college years in the dorms.

Yeah, I'll admit the room was tiny and sharing a bathroom with a bunch of other guys wasn't the greatest. But I also lived in one of the newer dorms on campus, so I had the luxury of air conditioning in the summer. I had a single (I shared a room my freshman year, but my roommate was such a pain in the ass, I was determined to live by myself the following year). And I just liked the convenience of being near my classes (or at least within walking distance), not having to pay utility bills each month, getting free telephone and cable and not worring about buying groceries.

[mhendo]

John Hopkins? John Hopkins? Tsk-tsk-tsk. Did you really go there? :pWow, that's pretty bad. This is, of course one of the biggest peeves of most Hopkins-affiliated people, the fact that so many people get the name wrong. I think George Bush even made the mistake a few years back, when the Hopkins national champion lacrosse team visited the White House.

In my defense, it was just a typo. :)
Do you remember which dorm you were in? I lived in the Lakeshore Dorms for all four years of my undergrad work at Madison. :)
If my hazy memory, combined with a UW map, is any guide, i think it might have been Humphrey Hall. Does that seem right?

[kenobi 65]

If my hazy memory, combined with a UW map, is any guide, i think it might have been Humphrey Hall. Does that seem right?

Yup. That's one of the "summer" dorms...at least when I was there, its primary use was for people who came in specifically for summer classes. (It's across the street from the two dorms where I lived, Kronshage and Adams Halls.) During the regular school year, it served as an "overflow" dorm for kids who had signed up to live in the dorms late, and had to wait for a room to open up in one of the traditional dorms.