Investing in inequality

Some nights when I’m falling asleep, I forget that I’m in my bed and imagine instead that I’m attending a performance of the orchestra.

The radiator alternates between hissing and groaning as its steam pressure rises and falls. The water knocks as it ebbs through the pipes. The mini-fridge, cooling nothing more than a few bottles of water and the occasional yogurt, pulses vibrations through the floor while feet march down the hallway carrying night owls outdoors for their evening smokes.

And at the end of a typical evening’s performance – but before the new day flushes me out of bed – the dramatic finale ensues: Delivery trucks back down the street to the loading dock – beep-beep – and sanitation workers chase away the night with the brutal smashing of dumpsters against garbage trucks.

Odious as it may be, I – along with many other dorm residents – have grown accustomed to the constant nuisance. We put up with all of the ruckus as well as the occasionally cold showers and paper-thin walls that afford little privacy.

But even considering how dorm life intrudes upon individuals’ sanity, there’s
something to be said for the collective good generated by IU’s policy requiring freshmen to live in dorms.

It’s an exercise in egalitarianism. By furnishing everyone with the same practical, completely unglamorous desk and bed set, IU does a reasonably good job of encouraging incoming students to meet friends based on their mutual interests rather than their economic statuses.

Providing quality education and equal opportunities to the next generation has always been the goal of state-sponsored universities. But next year, Purdue is selling off a bit of that legacy.

The West Lafayette campus’s new, $52 million First Street Towers will offer students amenities including private bathrooms, free laundry facilities, cleaning services and, yes, even flat-screen televisions. The going rate for a room will be $13,800 for the first year.

Alright, the building alone is unlikely to be the downfall of public education.

It contains only 365 single rooms, meaning it can accommodate barely 1 percent of the university’s population. And since each room was reserved within 48 hours of being made available, it seems unlikely many freshmen could ever aspire to beat the stampede of upperclassmen in the rush to the building’s doors. They’ll still be getting their run-of-the-mill freshman experience.

But Purdue’s expansion into the luxury housing market does call into question the sort of projects that public universities should undertake on the taxpayer’s (and tuition-paying student’s) dollar.

Life in the luxury dorm will cost approximately 74 percent more than spending a year in standard Purdue housing. And while the argument could be made that Purdue is simply capturing a segment of the population that would otherwise spend its resources on equally expensive off-campus housing, I’m not convinced Purdue – or any public university – should be financing the good life for an exclusive minority of its students.

Rather than draining funds to install flat-screens for the few, improvements could doubtlessly be made in communal infrastructure: Classrooms, libraries and other public spaces are perennially cash-strapped.

But even if First Street Towers turn a profit for the university, the project is still questionable. It is a move that makes the university complicit in encouraging the gap in opportunities available to students of different economic backgrounds.

That’s an endeavor state universities should be wary of undertaking.