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!

Exactly. I’m not a ‘loon’ or ‘precious’ about en-suite. I am aware how women’s safety is compromised in mixed sex areas, especially when young and put in a position where you have no choice to share these facilities every day.

Living standards have improved since we were at uni.

Personally, I’d hate shared bathrooms which is what I had when I was in halls in the early 90s.

It’s just one of the reasons why the cost of university accommodation is now stratospherically higher than it was in the 80s, piling on £1,000s of extra unnecessary debt and ripping off students and their parents. It’s a money making exercise - ‘university as hotel’.

I agree with you.

There should at least be a cheaper option for students who don’t want to pay for all these facilities.

More and more students have to opt for a university close to home because they can’t afford these costs.

I had an en suite 18 years ago when I was in halls. I had internet too- you’d have hated it op.

I always had shared bathrooms as a student. But that was back in the 80s/90s before sneaky cameras to spy on young women was a thing.

I’m glad my young niece has an en-suite room in her halls.

At my Oxford college in the 80s, each staircase had about 2 or 3 baths, so 2 or 3 for every 10- 20 people, but each bath was in quite a big room and you could use it at any time of day. I don’t remember ever having to wait. Coming from quite a poor home, I remember being impressed that it filled up with hot water really fast and I used to fill it up right to the top, which I thought was a massive luxury actually.

@Figmentofmyimagination

My son had a choice of about 6 different types of room, varied in size, ensuites, bed size, TV, ranging from £150 to £210 a week
He is a room at £190 a week , decent size with ensuite. He's worked for the last year and has a job. He can afford it

I guess it means they can charge more.Halls with shared bathrooms are cheaper so they make less money out of them. Also harder to rent out in holidays. Nothing to do with 'progress' all to do with money. My kids will be going for the cheap/shared shower accom.

@Figmentofmyimagination There are cheaper options, but for first year students accommodation is very much on first come / first served in my experience, so someone who has, and accepts a firm offer early in the season will have more options than a student who is waiting for results or goes through clearing later in the day.

The slightly crazy thing is that most universities only accommodate students in year 1, so they start off with lovely en suite, amazing facilities etc and then usually graduate onto often slightly dubious HMOs with one shower and toilet between 5, unreliable landlords, having to trust your flat mates not to leave the front door open, etc etc

Easier to rent out in the holidays.

Even the supposedly cheap rooms are subsidising the building costs. They only look cheap by comparison, because we’ve been so desensitised into accepting these huge sums as a cost of going to uni, especially when you consider that students are often paying for the room for a lot of vacation weeks when they don’t need it and can’t sublet. It is all a bit of a rip off really, just that parents have no choice and have to be positive and make the best of it.

I’m a bit cynical and jaded having put a DC through university through Covid with all the accommodation-related stress, wasted money and palaver that went with that. I don’t trust them at all and see them as giant money making machines. The icing on the cake is that DC still has no final degree certificate despite graduating in June, thanks to the marking and assessment boycott.

Mine had en-suite
Didn't want to share
Other people's idea of clean is not always the same
She was or is a private person ...sharing bathroom and loo with 9 strangers would have been tricky
Her halls didn't have a cleaner ..it was like a 9 bed flat with shared kitchen ( which was bad enough lol )

Oh wow! So posh, how dare they? Are we on the Middle Ages or the year 2023?

I had an ensuite in the first year of Uni which was late 90s as did my older brother in the mid 90s. My niece has just gone to university and yes, she has an ensuite but my brother said they have a third less of space on the bedroom that is due to pressure on student accomodations. Basically, if you paid you got a bathroom, I couldn't afford it I'm the second year.

I had an en-suite in the late 1990s in halls.
It wasn't my first choice as it was more expensive but that's what they gave me.
The bathroom was very tiny.

If he lived on chilli he would have needed an en-suite!

I lived in a single sex self catered flat in 92/93. There was a shower and 2 sinks between 6. Cleaned once a week and toilet paper provided. Didn’t bother me in the slightest. Lectures didn’t all start at the same time so no fight for the shower in the morning. It cost £35 a week which seemed so much at the time. En-suite is definitely an excuse to wring more money out if students. I guess it makes sense in cities where accommodation is rented out in holidays.

I was at Uni mid 90s and had an en-suite. But then I now live in a new built where me, OH and the kids have our own bathroom.
i mean…. Why have single rooms…. Dorms were just fine?

For DD, having to deal with flatmates' vomit and worse before being able to use toilet or shower was unavoidable.

The noise and general chaos was something she could close her door and put headphones on to ignore it.

House trained students do have a hard time of it when put in with others who have never learned to clean up after themselves.

It isnt always easy to get a transfer out. Students get repeatedy sold the idea that their first year is an amazing experience and can end up thinking they are the problem.

I have just dropped my second kid off at uni.
Their room is ensuite, in a new block.
All the rooms in halls are ensuite and the only price difference is catered or not catered.

The room was incredibly well done. Probably the same size as my uni room back in the 1980s, but with a double bed and an ensuite tucked into a very tiny space. I was pretty impressed.

I think that haviong ensuites is better for the uni.

• no need to have cleaners, kids are responsible for their own bathroom
• much more flexibility, you can mix girls and boys in one flat/corridor. If I was sharing a bathroom and needing to walk down the corridor in my pjs, I would really really prefer to be in a single sex flat/floor
• makes the rooms more flexible during the summer holidays when they can berented out for conferences etc.

win-win really

Toxic nostalgia is a thing.

Isn't it just.

"I had it hard, so my children have to as well. It will teach them a life lesson"

For the record DD had an en suite in halls, but shared bathrooms in her student houses. By then she was sharing with people she knew and liked, and not random strangers.

@SarahAndQuack is on point about conference hosting. They are more about business these days and I’m glad I managed to retire early out of Higher education.

When I started at university in the late1990s I was in a corridor of eight rooms (mixed sex) where there were two toilets, one shower and one bath. We had washbasins in the rooms. There were often queues for the shower but no one apart from me used the bath I don't think, I had lovely long soaks in there! Halfway through the first year we were decanted into brand new en suite blocks which were nicer but more soulless and had snagging issues as they were newly built. I missed my bath too!

When I was at Uni in the 1970s there was a "mixed sex" hall which I lived in but the male and female buildings were totally separate. We had a nightwatchman who guarded the communal bit. They didn't seem to realise that people could hop in and out of windows on the ground floor😂One friend of mine was on the ground floor and her room was like Piccadilly Circus!