I am surprised to hear that you consider 16 m^2 small. In Norway, the vast majority of rooms that you can rent from the semi-public student welfare organization

I am surprised to hear that you consider 16 m^2 small. In Norway, the vast majority of rooms that you can rent from the semi-public student welfare organizations are roughly 7-13 m^2. If you want a bigger living space, you'll either have to shell out for a full-fledged apartment (not affordable for a student unless you have a good part-time job or a "bad" part-time job and make sacrifices with regards to entertainment and alcohol). If you decide to rent a private room or apartment, you will probably get a few more square metres, but will run the risk of an asshole landlord who might steal your deposit, living with people who are not studying and have no plans to do so, and if you're slightly unfortunate there might be mold in your bedroom and/or bathroom as well. The best option is possibly buying an apartment, but that's not possible without heavy monetary support from family or lots of saved-up money from working for years before studying. All in all, 16 m^2 is definitely on the high end when I look at the private rooms my student friends live in. I probably know more people who live in 5-6 m^2 than live in > 16 m^2 rooms. With regards to the state of university campuses, it's not even worthwhile to compare private American universities with massive endowments to European public universities (i.e. most European universities) that get all their money from the government, and not one cent more than they need. Why would the government spend millions on campus landscaping when they can move the money to more worthy budgetary posts like health or kindergartens? Private universities in the US and elsewhere simply do not have these restrictions.