University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

[twincitizen]

Kelly Doran, Luxe Housing Visionary: http://www.mndaily.com/news/campus/2013 ... isionary-0

[Silophant]

They appear to be digging up the tunnel between Shepherd Lab and Civil Engineering. Does anyone know why?

[FISHMANPET]

I believe they're replacing a freight elevator over the summer, which is requiring a lot of structural work as well.

[MNdible]

Not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I know some of these tunnels have had waterproofing issues.

[FISHMANPET]

Also a little fun fact, the entire complex of buildings east of Church st (CEMS building, Keller Hall, Lind, both ME buildings, Akerman, Shepherd, and Rapson) have no proper loading dock for the summer. CEMS is closed because of the addition, and the Keller/ME loading dock is going to close soon because they're going to pour concrete to replace the temporary asphalt around the Nano tech building, and it requires 29 days to cure.

[Viktor Vaughn]

The Star Tribune reported on the U of M housing boom, Luxury housing boom transforms student life at U of M.

The gist of the article is old news around here -- Doran, Opus, and others are popping up luxury student housing as fast as they can. Campus life has gone from eating ramen in block wall dorm rooms with shared bathrooms to luxury apartment living with yoga studios and outdoor kitchens.

The nearly unanimous sentiment in the comment section is also predictable -- these spoiled kids are insulated from economic realities, they feel entitled to luxuries they should have to work for, and they're missing out on the character-building tradition of scraping through college in near poverty. These point are arguably true, and I could certainly join in with back in my day stories about working full time through college and paying my own rent to live in crappy apartments.

But where the common thrust of the Strib comments go off the rails is using these luxury-living kids to paint a whole student population and even an entire generation. Then it's held up as proof college kids shouldn't complain about tuition being too high or run-away student loans.

Now, anonymous newspaper commenters can say what they want and it doesn't change reality, any tidbit can and will be used to justify a preconceived political narrative. But I want to hear what THIS group of anonymous internet commenters think.

How much of the student housing boom fueled by student loans?

My personal speculation says, not much. I'm sure there is some student loan money going to these luxury rents, but thats probably the exception. I'm willing to bet the majority of the students in these new buildings have no student loans at all.

I suspect parents are fueling the luxury boom more than anything else. I have clients who expect to support each of their kids in college to the tune of $40-$50k a year. I think this boom may say more about the rising divide between the affluent and everyone else than runaway student loans. There will be what, a few thousand luxury units on campus when they all come on line? That's still a small percentage of the student population. The majority of students are still living in dorms or crappy slumlord-owned places just like back in the day. And when you consider how affluent the average U of M student is compared to the average 19 year old -- I'd say these luxury developments say nothing about this generation whatsoever.

You could imagine how this lifestyle will keep these kids insulated from economic reality, but a good number of these kids will probably live their entire lives that way. It says more about the ever-widening class divide than the entitlement of the current generation, tuition rates, or student loans.

[FISHMANPET]

Yeah, it's always been my view that these apartments were being paid for by the parents and not loans. But then again I'm sure there are plenty of people that are stupid enough to take out $20k a year in loans from private lenders to pay for luxuries. The U actually has a campaign to prevent this, encouraging students to take advantage of free/cheap on campus events, with the tagline "Live like a student now so you don't have to later."

[Viktor Vaughn]

Are private lenders still giving out student loans that freely? My understanding is that since the 2010 Dodd/Frank act pulled the government guarantee of private lender's student loans, most have exited the business. It seems like Direct loans are quickly becoming the only option.

[Silophant]

I only know 5 students living in the luxury apartments, so this isn't really solid data, but of those five, four have the rent paid by their parents. (The last works nearly full-time at Macy's). The luxury boom is definitely being driven by parents, not loans.

[min-chi-cbus]

Even IF the student paid for the apartment themselves, what a terrible use of extra money! A "smart" student may invest that money elsewhere, pay off any outstanding loans or other debts, or stop working crazy hours to support a luxury lifestyle and instead invest their TIME towards school itself and other extra-curricular activities that head hunters love!

[NickP]

Does anyone know how frequent it is for students to double up in rooms in luxury apartments. I always though this was driving some of the demand as well. It makes sense, if you are going to share a room with someone, why not do it in a nice apartment as opposed to a dorm. Four people in a two bedroom actually makes those apartment rents pretty reasonable.

[TheUrbanGopher]

I lived in the Dinnaken House on Washington last year, and although it was a nice apartment, it was not nearly as amenity-filled as the newer places are. I paid about $420 to split a room in a two bedroom apartment (Would have been about $840 for my own room).

Two of my roommates decided to live in Stadium Village Flats this past year, and they are paying $525 each to split a room. For the extra amenities, party rooms, free lobby coffee and whatever else, the extra $100 is appropriate.

On the other hand, my other roommate and I are doing the so called "Back in My Day we lived like bums" and are living in those notorious slum houses in Como. We are loving every single minute of it, and are "saving" some cash every month. Really though, the big difference is that the two living in SVF have their parents paying for it, whereas I am paying for everything myself. I think it really is parent driven, and also cross-checking the quotes in the Strib article, I would confirm that. "I have never known anything different" tells me they are used to the Wayzata luxury that they grew up in.

[go4guy]

I lived in a slum house for 3 years in college. Paid $400/month for my own room. Our electric, heat, and cable bills were pretty high due to it being 100 years old. I lived in 1301 University right when it first opened for my senior year. It was considered by far the best apartment on campus (even was complete concrete construction, no wood) I paid $450 to split a good size room in a 3 bedroom apartment (other two bedrooms were single occupant). EVERYTHING was new and nice, utilities were included, cable and internet was included. Awesome location, and never had to use a car. So I would say it was comparable in price for me and the positives outweighed having to bunk up with a buddy.

Back to 1301. That think was built right. NEVER heard neighbors, ever. I could blast my stereo in my room, and the girl in the apartment next to use could not hear a thing. Great quality in that place. Also lived in UV freshman year. That place was stick built and you could hear your neighbors talking in the next apartment!

[FISHMANPET]

1301 had pretty shitty studios. I sublet a unit overlooking the parking lot for a summer with my at the time girlfriend, and the bathroom was obnoxiously huge and a waste of space, and it just generally didn't take good advantage of the awkward floor plate it was built on. Also the managers were kind of weird.

But garbage shoot right outside our door sure was nice.

[Viktor Vaughn]

That's a good point about sharing a bedroom to bring the rent down to something close to reasonable.

Also, utilities do need to be factored in. I lived in a house with friends in college wih fuel oil heating and in the winter it would cost $600/month to heat that big drafty house.

Thanks for all the interesting responses.

[mulad]

Folks have to be a bit careful when comparing rents near the UMN campus. Some of the "luxury" apartments advertise prices on a per-room basis, rather than per-unit. I remember the Melrose (now known as Stadium View) was advertising per-room or per-person rents around $750/month when they opened, so I think an entire 4-room unit added up to around $3000/month. Seems like their rents may have gone down a bit at this point (their website isn't clear about it, but it looks like they're still advertising per-room or per-person rents ranging from $500 to $735/mo).

My vague recollection is that I paid $425 to $475/mo to split a large 2-bedroom unit among 4 students at University Village a couple blocks away, and we were in one of the best units: Top floor under the tower. We only really shared a "wall" with our downstairs neighbors, though at least one of them would crank the music at times, which got annoying. The other problem was that the unit effectively had windows on 7 sides, so we froze up the A/C one spring because indoor temps rose waaay faster than outside.

I stayed in a frat house one summer, which was probably more cramped than many single dorm rooms on campus. After that I was in a slummy house in Marcy-Holmes. The rent was something like $350 per person, and we each got our own "room" (mine was actually an old hallway with some doors added). It was an old mansion that had been sliced up into multiple units, though apparently it had never been zoned for multi-unit housing, so we all got kicked out after about 6 months. The house was torched a few months later, and has since been razed and replaced. There were a bunch of bizarre things about that place.

[Nick]

Anecdotes!

One thing that generally gets left out of the campus housing market discussion is that it's also insanely expensive to live on campus in University-owned buildings.

http://www.housing.umn.edu/costs/1314/index.html

With the cheapest meal plan (and a meal plan is required), it costs well over a $1000 a month for a double room in Territorial Hall. Basically, that's a $1000 a month to split a vintage 1950s studio with communal bathrooms. Also, you have to move out over winter break. You also run the risk of being forced into "expanded housing" at first while people move into fraternities/sororities/drop out of school, so you could be splitting a study room four ways for a couple months.

[Viktor Vaughn]

Yeah, anecdotes are what I was looking for. I don't really think there's data to tell this story, so people's experiences is the next best thing.

[gpete]

I saw on the recent Board of Regents agenda that they were discussing schematics for the new microbiology building, which will be the next Biomedical Discovery District building to be constructed (will be adjacent to the new cardiovascular/cancer building). As far as I can tell, this is the last Biomedical Discovery District building they have plans for in the immediate future.

If anyone has time or interest, there might be more info contained in the docket for the June meeting. http://regents.umn.edu/board-meetings/s ... with-video

It's a big file...

[go4guy]

Also sounds like Best Buy founder Richard Schulz will be donating $1billion to the U and Mayo for cancer research. Not sure how much each will get, or if they will combine their efforts, but great news, and will help drive further development to house this research.