Lack of AC in many college dorms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a college in the south that had many dorms without AC. It was horrible for multiple months of the year. I remember having headaches, not being able to sleep, just being gross and hot all the time. This was 15 years ago and they have since retrofitted their dorms with AC. If you're paying $50k a year for college, you shouldn't be sweating where you live.

South is very different that Wi/Boston/UVA/etc. In south, it's hot in Jan/Feb sometimes. But for areas where the heat is normally gone by mid Sept, it would be a waste of money to retrofit dorms. But FL or AL or TX, I wouldn't' send my kid without AC dorm, but then again, I wouldn't send my kid there for many reasons (and my kids don't want to go for the exact same reasons).

Because snowflakes melt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a college in the south that had many dorms without AC. It was horrible for multiple months of the year. I remember having headaches, not being able to sleep, just being gross and hot all the time. This was 15 years ago and they have since retrofitted their dorms with AC. If you're paying $50k a year for college, you shouldn't be sweating where you live.

This is where i come out. And look, my dorm had no A/C in a place where we roasted for about a month, and then froze our collective a$$es off in the winter.

If I'm paying $20-60K (or more) per year for my child to go to school (plus incidentals on top of that), you had best bet I expect there to be heat and A/C for however long as it's needed.

And then the time to worry about that is when you are applying to colleges. If you apply to a school that has less than 40% of dorms with AC, then you don't get to complain "it isn't fair" when your kid gets assigned a dorm without AC. If that was what actually matters that much for you, you only pick schools with all dorms AC'd. Good luck with that by the way outside of the south, because as of 2018, 7 or the 8 Ivies have no ac in dorms and the one that does (columbia) had only about 10 rooms literally with AC. Don't think much has changed in the last 5 years either. Point being that most of the midwest/northeast dorms simply do not have AC---very expensive to retrofit older dorms with it, and not worth the cost for just 3-4 weeks of the year.


I prefer for my kids to focus on the academics and career opportunities at their universities (internship, coops, research), etc. Whether there is AC in dorms or a lazy river on campus really isn't important for my kid's selection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the repeated heat waves and rise in temperatures over the past decade, I agree that all dorms should have a/c. We already pay enough in exorbitant tuition and student fees so students should be comfortable.

So you would be happy paying for the dorms to be retrofitted? Or multiple brand new dorms to be built on a college campus (where I don't know as they need to use the old dorms until the new one is built)?
Brand new dorm that opened on my kids campus in 2018 cost $110 million to build (in 2016/2017/2018). That's for ~850 students. Donors donated all of the money for that to happen. Without donors, costs of tuition and R&B would skyrocket to ridiculous rates.

Cost to retrofit a dorm would easily be $15-20Million (had a contractor on the FB group commenting that it would be at least that, if not more, and likely would be a ton more). I for one, would prefer any school my kid attends use that $20M times 8-10 dorms for academic programs. Sure AC would be nice, but I'm not planning to pay an extra $10K+ per year for my kid to have AC for the 2-3 weeks it's needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a college in the south that had many dorms without AC. It was horrible for multiple months of the year. I remember having headaches, not being able to sleep, just being gross and hot all the time. This was 15 years ago and they have since retrofitted their dorms with AC. If you're paying $50k a year for college, you shouldn't be sweating where you live.

South is very different that Wi/Boston/UVA/etc. In south, it's hot in Jan/Feb sometimes. But for areas where the heat is normally gone by mid Sept, it would be a waste of money to retrofit dorms. But FL or AL or TX, I wouldn't' send my kid without AC dorm, but then again, I wouldn't send my kid there for many reasons (and my kids don't want to go for the exact same reasons).

Because snowflakes melt?

Not too bright are you. Because it's not 90+ for more than a few week of the college academic calendar.

[Anonymous]

I can remember placing a large fan in the window for the first 2-3 weeks of the school year. Other than that it wasn't really an issue. I didn't spend much time in the dorm if I could help it anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my school closed because the temps were in the mid 20’s at bus pickup, I gave up. We have raised a nation of wimps.

by wimpy parents

x100000000

Tell her the northeast isn't going to bend to her wimpy aspirations. Next time consider Ole Miss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve found that 95% of the things the parents are concerned about on the parent pages are non issues for the actual students. The parents are the whiners.

x1000000

The parents are PITAs, and the administrations know this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the repeated heat waves and rise in temperatures over the past decade, I agree that all dorms should have a/c. We already pay enough in exorbitant tuition and student fees so students should be comfortable.

Something to think about when choosing a college!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a northern climate and no one had AC, not at home or school. However, in VA there should be AC. It's getting hotter and muggier. I just got back from Europe where they also don't have AC and almost died in the heat wave. People were dropping like flies. Before judging entitled kids go try to get some sleep in 90 degree humid weather with a fan blowing more hot air onto you.

THIS ^^. I'm sick of parents acting like it's somehow "entitled" when other parents complain about a lack of A/C in their kids' dorms. If these dorms were being used by adults, there is no freaking way they'd get by without A/C. It would be installed immediately. But since it's "only" teens/young adults who have to sleep there, it's perfectly ok to make them sweat and get no sleep. Really, a disgusting mentality.

[Anonymous]

There is a dorm at my son’s campus which was an apartment complex the university system bought as they kept adding more freshman and was running out of housing. It has two and four bedrooms with each person having their own bath. The complex has a pool, gym, market on sight.

The parents complain it is too far from campus, about a 30 minute walk or a bus from the attached stadium. I’m like a pool and no shared bathroom. Oh and a W/D in each unit.

Those kids have no idea what college life was like in the dark ages!

[Anonymous]

Get a fan for 2-3 weeks, OP.
What’s wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

Ridiculous. I went to Hopkins in Baltimore and when I was a sophomore, I found a used window AC unit in the paper and bought it from the money I made in my on campus job. I paid about $40 for an old AC unit, put it in my window and had AC in my room. I left the dorms in my junior year and moved it to the apartment I had. I was popular, and had friends that would come over on hot days to play cards in my room since I had the AC unit. After I graduated, I stayed in my apartment for another few years because I had a job down at Hopkins Hospital. When I finally left, I was moving out to the DC suburbs to take a job in the DC area. I donated my window AC unit to my old roommates because the condo I was moving to had central AC.

Now, window AC units are cheap. You can get one that will be enough for a college/apartment bedroom for about $150. If you want one for a bigger area like a living room, it's like $300. If the kid has roommates, they can chip in to buy one new. Or, the rich private college parents can buy one. There is no reason that the university needs to pay for central AC which will be significantly more costly for the university than window units for the kids who really want/need one, especially in an area that doesn't need one more than a few weeks out of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ridiculous. I went to Hopkins in Baltimore and when I was a sophomore, I found a used window AC unit in the paper and bought it from the money I made in my on campus job. I paid about $40 for an old AC unit, put it in my window and had AC in my room. at Hopkins Hospital.

Now, window AC units are cheap. You can get one that will be enough for a college/apartment bedroom for about $150. If you want one for a bigger area like a living room, it's like $300. If the kid has roommates, they can chip in to buy one new. Or, the rich private college parents can buy one. There is no reason that the university needs to pay for central AC which will be significantly more costly for the university than window units for the kids who really want/need one, especially in an area that doesn't need one more than a few weeks out of the year.

Most college dorms will not allow a window unit. They don't even allow non-window ac units, but bet those get snuck in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve found that 95% of the things the parents are concerned about on the parent pages are non issues for the actual students. The parents are the whiners.

I was just looking at the JMU Reddit and there were several threads about dorms in response to questions from incoming students. The lack of AC in several older dorms was discussed. Basically, the answers from current students were mostly along the lines that yes, having no AC sucks for a few weeks of the year, but you just deal with it. So no, the lack of AC was not a complete non-issue, but neither was it a big deal.

Also several posts saying the benefits of putting in deposit early and/or being in honors college is first dibs on the best dorms and to schedule classes. One response to a poster whining it wasn't fair to waitlisted kids like him that they got the "suckiest" dorms and classes, "well, you should have gotten better grades in high school to not get waitlisted."

In today’s admissions climate you can’t really assume that a kid was waitlisted due to lower grades. Maybe that’s true at some colleges but there are plenty of high stats, high grades, excellent extracurricular kids who are waitlisted or rejected. In the end the kids all pay the same tuition whether WL or not. My kid is going to a school in NE that admitted a very low percent of applicants. They waited to assign dorms until the summer. No preferance given for putting down an early deposit. I like that all kids are on equal footing. Also, we are sending our kid with a fan and they’ll be fine. They turned down an honors college with beautiful dorms and AC. In the end the kids will be fine with a fan (lots of NE families make do w/o AC even in the summer).

[Anonymous]

Rite of passage. Like walking to school in the snow uphill. Get fans and let them have freshman bonding experience. My husband and I still talk about how hot it was in our freshmen dorms lol.