to think University students without particular needs do not need an en-suite shower room?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

I'm so surprised that University Halls of Residence now offer this as an option to more or less all their students. What the hell? How many of you are indulging your offspring with this poncery and why? (exceptional needs aside of course).

When I went to Uni in the dark ages of the 1980s no one had an ensuite. Almost no one had a wash basin either. Is it a money making exercise?

New build houses are the same. Not every bedroom needs separate washing/bathing facilities. The first world's gone mad!

I'm very pleased that DD has an ensuite. In my uni accommodation in the late 80s there were 17 females on the second floor. We had two showers, one bath and three toilets between us. One of the males from the ground floor used to come up and used the bath on our floor despite having baths etc on the ground floor. He was know as "Billy the octopus" for a reason. I'm very glad that DD doesn't have to put up with that sort of harassment.

Amazed at some of the pampering going on back in the '80s (1980s just to be clear). 18 of us shared one shower, two loos, and two baths, although granted there were five sinks. As for the hall of residence with THREE!!!!! payphones.....I have no words😁

What unis did not have back then, beyond far fewer of us going to uni, was foodbanks. That perhaps should be a bigger concern, rather than worry about DCs being indulged 🙄with en-suites. I'll confess to being thee times guilty on the latter- and all at quite differing costs and overall room size impact.

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/How-to-Beat-a-Cost-of-Learning-Crisis-Universities-Support-for-Students.pdf

Regarding support for food and drink, half (51%) of universities offered discounts, with more than a quarter (27%) operating a food bank and one-in-ten (11%) giving out food vouchers.

One-third (33%) of Russell Group universities operate a food bank, compared to 26% of other universities.

Back in the 80s, plenty of people still had outside toilets at home!

Think you've got your decades a bit mixed up there @Badbadbunny 😀Although that was still just about true for my grandparents on one side.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/censusunearthedexplore50yearsofchangefrom1961/2021-08-09

When I was a student (approximately one million years ago), I would have loved an en-suite. Our rooms had a sink but if we needed the loo, had to trudge down a long cold corridor.

It is alleged that some of my fellow students did use their sinks for wees! I joke not.

Lol.
I had to go down two flights of stairs to a bathroom or toilet. There was one of each shared between 10 people. You obviously didn't know until you got there if it was free or not. And - and I'm not making this up - there was no door on the bottom of the staircase (Cambridge college, no corridors). So if you needed a wee in the night you'd have to put on a coat and shoes, go down two flights of stairs and hope no one was using the loo). Damn right DD needs her own bathroom, why would you want to put anyone through that?

I didn't have an en suite at first
We shared 5 toilets, 2 baths and 1 shower between 18 of us
That was fun getting ready for student night out/balls etc with 1 shower!
So yes I went for an en suite the year after

Back in the dark ages (1991) I shared a room with a complete stranger who liked to play Simon and Garfunkel on repeat and ate sweetcorn from the can. There was a washbasin but the toilets and showers were down the corridor. Single glazed crittal windows that fogged up. But it was cleaned daily and cost £500 a term. Well, it cost taxpayers tbf, cheers for that.
DS no 2 has just moved into his en-suite bedroom in a shared flat with 11 others. Has to clean his room and en-suite himself, but the shared kitchen is cleaned weekly. That’s costing him £196 a week. It’s actually more than our mortgage. Complete shitshow, poor buggers.

We had 3 toilets and 2 showers for 12 girls. And 4 sinks in a row!

When I did my MA we had a sink, 2 toilets and 1 shower between 4 of us, but it was fine. Having a sink was a real bonus, lining up to brush your teeth always seems ridiculous.

Ive stayed in lots of uni accommodation for conferences, always en-suites. Which obviously makes the uni money, but I suspect has pushed the cost onto students.

As I've posted multiple times... quite a few of these 'en-suites' are shared bedrooms..

Gosh - I’m feeling very fortunate. As I said above, none of my 1980s en suite rooms were shared.

I used to have a weekly meeting at a men’s college; I remember sometimes arriving, early morning, in pouring rain or snow, to see young men scampering across quads in dressing gowns to get to their bathroom. Their college was much prettier than mine, but still …

Expecting students to submit work online as well....why can't they just handwrite everything? And I hear medical students are taught how to scan people with machines....witchery? Back in my day we just used leeches for everything.

OP
a) you are at least 20 years behind the times, all of my student halls had en suites and we built in the late 90s/early 2000s.
B) the state some people left the kitchens, sharing bathrooms with them would be a potential biohazard
C) Individual bathrooms greatly decreases the risk of sexual harrassment/assault, even if shared facilities are single sex you then get the potential discrimination aspects with trans/non binary students etc
D) presumably you don't share your home bathromm with your neighbours, and expect an ensuite when you stay in a hotel? Why should other adults (as all students are) not also be allowed this very basic preference particularly given the amount they are paying for it
E) pretty much all unis still have some shared facilities and the option to rent privately is always open if someone really wants to share a toilet with 5 strangers that much
F) most students move out of halls anyway after their first year

I didn't go to uni, but I've never shared a bathroom with more than 3 other people

I went to uni in 2001 and my hall had ensuites. It's not a new thing.

When I was at Sussex in the nineties I had to share a shower room and toilets with everyone on my hallway. Men and women. The showers only had a curtain and no private dressing area. The worst was sharing the toilets with the men. They were cleaned daily, thankfully. It's probably changed now.

I'd have loved an enquire, I used to hate going for a poo in the shared bathroom at uni (6 girls, 6 lads).

Ensuite not enquire!

I'd have an ensuite in all bedrooms if I had the money and was building a house from scratch. It also means unis can rent them out in the holidays for conferences etc.

I was at uni in the mid 90s and halls were ensuite (almost 30yrs ago!) Then moved into shared house for 2nd and 3rd year and we had no issues going from ensuite to normal house situation. Not really something to worry about.

YANBU and I totally agree particularly when you consider that in their second year most will be moving into grotty accommodation highly unlikely to have en-suites so why is it needed in halls?

My son’s Uni accommodation is amazing compared to what I had but we refused to pay for an en-suite and only funded the cheapest which the whole campus calls the “ghetto”. It’s the most gorgeous building with lovely big modern ,clean ,warm and affordable rooms.

So glad as we had more money spare for the second year which actually wasn’t needed as he has realised that cheapest and less debt is best. His shared house this year is basic, not an en-suite in sight but the same price as his cheap halls with bills included!

Where Dd has gone they are nearly all en suite single rooms and mixed flats. The Uni is slowly making all the halls en suite. There are hardly any shared bathrooms left. The Uni has more than enough accommodation for everyone and not everyone moves onto flat shares, looking at the student rooms in town off campus even those looked as nice as the halls for less money and a long walk.
Sharing a bathroom with someone who never cleans up and leaves mess for the others to deal with doesn't build character it builds resentment.

@B00kWoman

YANBU and I totally agree particularly when you consider that in their second year most will be moving into grotty accommodation highly unlikely to have en-suites so why is it needed in halls?

"Most" don't go into grotty accommodation etc these days. Things have moved on you know. There are now usually lots of blocks of purpose built student accommodation for year 2 onwards which are en-suite, and many even have studio flats where you don't even need to share a kitchen. Even ex-family homes converted to multiple occupation often have been converted to include en-suites.

For year 2, my son moved into a purpose built flat of 6, all en suite rooms, with a shared kitchen and living area. For year 3, they moved into a six bedroom, 3 story terraced house which used to be a B&B, converted so they all had an ensuite bedroom, and no, it wasn't grotty at all, in fact it had been very nicely renovated.

So there is no rental crisis due to lack of accommodation and raised prices in some Uni cities? 🤔There is enough accommodation in my son’s Northern uni town however we don’t have a lot of spare money to top up his loans and like many he had to rent something cheap and grotty. Not all students have parents with lots of money.

https://inews.co.uk/news/students-nightmare-accommodation-uk-cities-2529074#:~:text=Bristol%2C%20Manchester%20and%20Glasgow%20are,housing%20and%20pay%20extortionate%20prices&text=Students%20have%20been%20settling%20for,have%20skyrocketed%20since%20the%20pandemic.

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/26/uk-student-housing-reaching-crisis-point-as-bad-as-1970s-charity-warns

I went to uni in 2005. No ensuite. Toilet roll not provided. There was also a lock to get into the bathroom. So going to the loo in the middle of night meant collecting your loo roll and keys, locking your room/risking theft and heading off to the school style loos (2 loos, 1 shower cubicle and 1 bath cubicle in one room).

A few months in the shower light broke and they refused to replace it, as they thought it had been broken too many times. So it was a choice of showering in the pitch dark or leaving the shower door unlocked 🙄

I was happy enough to save money not having an ensuite but I can see why many would be horrified! Hopefully things have improved a bit!