
The History of American College Dorms - pepys
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-surprising-history-of-american-college-dorms/
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blahedo
To this day I deeply miss the ability to, when bored, wander down the hall and
see whose door was open and what was going on, or to leave my own door open
and get drawn into whatever interesting thing arose on the hallway. But aside
from aging out of college myself, far less people are even getting access to
that in the first place. The entire "dorm" model is dying at colleges, as the
residential buildings, though still colloquially called dorms, are really just
apartment buildings, except more expensive and they kick you out for a while
every couple months.

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WalterBright
I've often thought that dorms could be built for young, single workers. I,
too, enjoyed living in the dorms in college, and miss the camaraderie there.

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christianmann
WeLive was similar to this. Wonder how they're doing these days?

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analog31
My college had conventional dorms, and then they also bought and renovated a
bunch of the houses in the surrounding neighborhood, capable of housing maybe
6 or 8 students each. I lived in one of those houses.

Today, one of my kids is presently in a college dorm.

One thing was notable about the dorms, namely: The college is a great
landlord. Dorms tend to be reasonably secure, safe, and sanitary. Repairs are
made promptly and correctly. If something goes dreadfully wrong with a dorm
room, you can be in another room within a few hours. Because the dorms are
designed for college life, the distraction of dealing with your living
arrangements is kept to a bare minimum.

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chiph
My dorm was an old motel that the school was leasing. You could park right
outside your door, or go up the stairs if you were on the second floor. Since
we were a couple of blocks away from the main campus, we had our own dining
room. Which had better food than the main dining halls because it was less
institutional - the workers there knew us and our preferences. It was one of
the best-kept secrets of the university.

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Merrill
>"State universities located in towns of any size frequently looked upon
dormitories as an extravagance and students entirely capable of renting
lodging elsewhere. The first dormitory at Rutgers was only built in 1890."

Rutgers was not the state university until 1945.

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cafard
I had not been aware that an institution could be a land-grant school without
being a state school, but that is definitely what the Rutgers "about" page
says. Most interesting--and curious to see that it beat out Princeton.
"Princeton A&M" does roll off the tongue, doesn't it?

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fourthark
Spoiler: the history isn't very surprising.

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dang
It needn't be. We'll take that word out of the above.

