You’ll live in that crappy dorm ...

We say “dorms.” Now, you say what imagery comes to mind.\nBad food. Worse beds. Showers you won’t touch barefoot for fear of athlete’s foot, dysentery or SARS.\nNow, we say “Arizona State University dorms.” And now?\nHeated pools. A theater. An 8,000 square-foot gym. Tanning beds. Cabanas.\nWait. Cabanas?\nWanting slightly higher living standards in one’s freshman year is understandable, but there comes a point when enough is enough. Vista Del Sol, a new dorm option on Arizona State University’s campus, has reached this point.\nFirst problem: Class division. If students want to enact stratified living situations off-campus in their subsequent years, fine; but there is something to be said for the “we’re-all-in-this-together” living arrangements of freshman year. This homogeneity of living standards is an extremely valuable (not to mention vaguely endearing) component of “the college experience.” \nAnd this benefit gained from on-campus life and all its less-than-glamorous glory can’t be quantified: There’s no way anyone can put a price tag on a more unified campus that isn’t divided by class. College is meant to broaden horizons, so why institute a pre-existing divide from the very second students step on campus for orientation? Having a “rich kid dorm” is definitely not the way to go about social integration when students already come from diverse backgrounds. \nThe obvious complaint to this is that of the free market – if the demand is there, we should privatize further and sell. That’s fine, but the argument applied to this case brushes off the importance of opportunity cost. In spending the money on some ostentatiously-gentrified living arena for rich 18-year-olds, Arizona State University has missed out on potential spending on facilities used by all the students, instead of only 1,866 of them. Colleges can always use better classroom facilities, technology upgrades, deeper scholarship endowments or higher campus security, to name a few things. Even from an economic perspective, this just doesn’t hold up.\nAnd besides, cabanas? In a dorm? We’re all for utility maximization, but let’s be reasonable here. It’s still public school, after all. \nDissent– Jacob Levin \nNo doubt these dorms are lavish, but if they’re what students want, Arizona State University should provide them. Some on the editorial board seem to think that by renting these dorms, ASU will leak the big secret to its students that some people have more money than others. But they don’t realize that if the university doesn’t provide what its students demand, the private market will simply do it for them. Maybe the majority of the editorial board doesn’t believe in creating class division, but the fact is, you can’t stop people from buying what they want and thereby dividing themselves. And if they can’t find dorms on campus that suit their needs, they’ll simply move off campus. Then, the big indication of wealth won’t be dorms, but region. To try to superficially manage a societal problem like this is simply exacerbating it.