My experience was that of the Arkansas student in this article. Freshman year we were required to live in the university dorms, and they were bad - two to a ro

My experience was that of the Arkansas student in this article. Freshman year we were required to live in the university dorms, and they were bad - two to a room, poor ergonomics (for example, the bathroom sinks were too small to fill a glass of water - I did dishes in the bathtub), the per-room HVAC had constant issues, and all that while being far more expensive than off-campus housing. A few years later I was paying less than half as much for a private room in an apartment two miles down the street with a kitchen, much nicer furnishings, in-unit laundry, included parking, and a pool. All of that is to say: our dorms were expensive because the university had a de jure monopoly.