Even in the UK, which is a lot poorer than the US, every undergraduate has always gotten an individual bedroom.
The idea of making adults share bedrooms is very bizarre. How do you have a relationship living like that?
[1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...
And US university education itself is much more expensive. Genuinely bizarre how when something often costs six figures, shared bedrooms are the norm and eliminating windows is seen as a viable alternative. Still, you have better college sports teams I guess...
I've heard these are actually normally a net income source, not an expenditure!
My children each suffered in different ways from being forced to share a bedroom with someone when they entered college as well.
In my completely layman opinion, I think that the shared living space with private bedroom (even windowless) is a sensible compromise that will result in a better quality of life for the students there.
I actually found it formative to be forced to share that space and resolve (inevitable) tensions that arise. And since it's usually randomized, you end up with someone you might not have normally met. Of course some people have bad experiences, and can request re-assignment.
When I was an undergraduate in Oklahoma in the early 2000s, Freshmen had to share dorms but after that one could pay extra to not share the room, although the bathroom was still shared. However, when I was at USC for my MS housing was extremely limited and while there were a handful of single-person dorms, almost everyone had 2+ person setups and even then it was like winning a lottery ticket to get any on campus housing at all. Later during my PhD at UCSD, it was again enormously difficult to get any on campus housing and I had roommates in campus housing for 6 years. There wasn't another option. Maybe things have changed, but when I was an undergraduate in Oklahoma in the early 2000s
My undergrad experience: by policy, freshmen had roommates, sophomores and above lived alone unless they wanted a roommate.
Btw some of the London unis do make people share. At least one friend plus my wife were having to share. Drives people nuts, especially if the other person has some issue like snoring or excessive partying.
With that said, I did hear that after I graduated they added dorms for freshmen, but I also heard that the dorms all had single rooms, with the only difference between the dorms and the apartments was that the dorms had communal bathrooms.
For what it's worth, I would not have gone to any school where I would've had to share a bedroom. I'm an intensely private person, and if I couldn't go to college anywhere I wouldn't have to share a bedroom I'd just have entered the workforce at 18 and continued living with my parents till I could afford to move out.
This is mostly true but not universal - when I was in UG accommodation in the mid-2000 it was indeed mostly individual, but there was also some small fraction of shared rooms available, that were a little cheaper than my (probably somewhat subsidised) £50/week individual room.
I would have absolutely hated it if I'd had to share a bedroom with someone else! Aside from generally wanting my own space with privacy, how the hell is that supposed to work when you're bringing sexual partners back to your room?!
I did four years in shared rooms, and basically everybody figures out how to cooperate and work things out.
True, but if you're asking why anyone would put up with that -- it has something to do with money.
Remember that people having sex while not married has only been acceptable for perhaps 50 years to society, which post-dates many colelge buildings. There might be lots of people who want to dissuade people from "illicit liasons" by pairing them up in rooms to make things harder ;-)
Learn with, challenge, and help you… in the bedroom?!
You don’t need to sleep and get undressed in the same room as someone to study with them.
> I doubt the powers that be are worried about you wanting a long-term relationship.
When I was at Uni they made a big deal about how many people met their future partners there.