Why Dorms Are So Nice Now

Being a college student is a lot comfier than it used to be. This fall, many of the undergrads settling into their campus dwellings will find themselves in buildings far better appointed than the ones that now-graying alumni once called home. These students are the beneficiaries of a generation of construction that has spawned ritzy new dorms and other facilities at many colleges, as well as, more infamously, such amenities as rock-climbing walls and lazy rivers.

At some schools, the building continues. “The vision is to develop the coolest, hippest, most compelling destination in downtown,” the president of Emerson College, in Boston, last year when discussing a project that includes a new.