>I lived in a very small dorm room with 4 guys in it and one bathroom on a whole floor of dorm rooms. This pretty much still exists at many unis. Dorm housing

>I lived in a very small dorm room with 4 guys in it and one bathroom on a whole floor of dorm rooms. This pretty much still exists at many unis. Dorm housing was absurdly overpriced, which is why many schools required it. Unless you had a good reason, the dorms were a suckers bet. > I worked part time during the school year and full time during the summer to pay for it. This is very common > I had no car, no TV and only ate food the school provided via my meal plan. How are you supposed to hold down a job without a car in this day and age? People didn't use the meal plan because it was a terrible value. Going to a restaurant was cheaper. > Most students don't have jobs at all. According to you. Have you looked at data then vs. now? Also, you can barely even pull in enough to make rent, so what's the point? It doesn't make a dent. > Most students live in high end apartments (lots of these apartments cost more than my mortgage payment for my 4 bedroom house - per person). WTF are you talking about? Maybe at your university. I lived in a death trap @$180/month with a sketchy landlord I almost had to fight once. I'd hardly met anyone that lived somewhere nice. Maybe one or two, that would concede it was a nice thing, and a bit of a splurge, but they weren't paying that much anyway. Your whole comment reads like someone that thinks people on welfare are living high on the hog and eating lobster. EDIT: Added some stuff about how terrible a value college room and board is.