Why are US university/college campuses so big and awesome?

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DResq@reddit

All the colleges in the US compete with each other for students and so they have to be appealing to get the best students to go there.

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tara_tara_tara@reddit

A lot of colleges and universities are not big and not that great looking. MIT looks like a bunch of industrial warehouses strung together for the most part.

Yale is in New Haven in Columbia is in Harlem.

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Columbia is in Morningside Heights, which is basically between Harlem and the Upper West Side. BTW, Neil Patrick Harris and his family used to live in a brownstone in Harlem. Portions of Harlem have been quite gentrified.

The thing about Yale and MIT is that they don’t have their campuses fenced off or architecturally treated as separate from the surrounding community, as compared to, say, Ohio State (or at least OSU in the late 60s). MIT relies on numbers for their buildings, even though many (all?) have names, which distracts from appreciating them, but the historic buildings on the east side of Mass Ave (the dome, infinite corridor, etc.) are lovely, typical early 20th century college exteriors. Then there’s the Stata Center at MIT, which is, shall we say, unique.

Yale has lots of lovely collegiate gothic and Georgian architecture buildings, though their Beinecke Rare Book Library is one of the most beautiful examples of modern architecture, especially when the sun hits right on the translucent marble panels that comprise most of its exterior.

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Lower_Neck_1432@reddit

OSU is still a city unto itself, and High Street has lost it's somewhat gritty charm with development and Luxury Apartments that students shouldn't be able to afford if it weren't for the bloated student loans they receive.

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dhrisc@reddit

In ways these schools are competing for students in different ways. Those MIT warehouses are no doubt full of things like labs and research equipment and tools that are way more attractive to the students they want then other things the campus could invest in.

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ManicPixieDreamHag1@reddit

Yeah, MIT doesn’t have to pretty up the campus, but mid-range colleges and unis do. All those fountains, statues and cool architecture make campuses look prestigious and exclusive and help justify the insane price tags.

I have a friend who was a prof at a small, financially struggling private college. She was on a committee tasked with finding ways to help them save money. They were told not to touch the grounds and landscaping budgets because students and parents aren’t always informed consumers and tend to assume pretty campus = good school. Instead they kept firing professors and eliminating departments until the place finally went bankrupt. 🙄

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JeddakofThark@reddit

Those campuses looked the same when the prices weren't insane, though. UGA was something like $4,000 a semester when I went in the nineties. And the state paid for it, because I had better than a 3.0 grade point average in high school. They also provided a stipend for books. You know, in this bastion of socialism that is the state of Georgia.

That price also included exceptional healthcare, a world class fitness facility, and a lot of other amazing amenities that I can't immediately recall.

We fucked that all up somewhere along the way.

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Lower_Neck_1432@reddit

Gen X here. My college was paid with scholarships that I researched, Pell Grants, summer jobs, and a small loan ($10,000). The loan was paid off in 5 years. The main problem is that the Government because the guarantor for defaulted loans, so banks weren't so hesitant to grant them to even marginal students, and the Universities saw that and took advantage of it, hiking prices and creating new majors in subjects that guaranteed that they won't be able to land a job in that degree. There was no such degree as Queer Feminine Studies back when I went to college in the 80-90s.

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TheOkaySolution@reddit

I work for a mid-sized private Midwestern university.

Our tulip budget is insane.

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BlazinAzn38@reddit

The MIT student cares about faculty and research opportunities, Chico State’s student cares about food and rec center hours.

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elphaba00@reddit

I remember taking a college tour when I was in high school, and my mom remarked that it was nothing but concrete. I didn't end up going there. Not because of what my mom said. It just didn't seem like a good fit for what I wanted.

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Boopa0011@reddit

When you are on the Yale campus you get the chance to forget that you're still in New Haven.

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Bitter-Tea3437@reddit

It's pretty misleading to say that Columbia is in Harlem. It's in Morningside Heights which borders the UES, and it is much more culturally and aesthetically similar to the latter.

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OpeningChipmunk1700@reddit

Morningside Heights is UWS. It is south of Harlem, which starts at 125th. Columbia is around ten blocks south of that.

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HerrDrAngst@reddit

Lol yale's and Columbia's awesomeness isn't diminished by the city, neighborhood that they're in. Columbia may be in Harlem but its aura reaches out past its borders.

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UpbeatPhilosophySJ@reddit

Poster is talking about colleges normal people go to. Not colleges that people who ruined the country go to.

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Cobra_McJingleballs@reddit

Yale and Columbia are beautiful, what are you talking about? And Columbia is not in Harlem.

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UnderaZiaSun@reddit

Columbia is pretty nice and MIT has a cool Frank Gehry building

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sighnwaves@reddit

Columbia is in Morningside Heights and it's gorgeous.

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14Rage@reddit

Yale is also the best looking campus in the entire world. But new haven is a dump.

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trinite0@reddit

And Yale has maybe the most beautiful college campus on Earth.

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dragonflamehotness@reddit

But can't beat Cornell 😉

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ManicPixieDreamHag1@reddit

As a Cornell alum, this is 100% fact.

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ITrCool@reddit

Gotta join “Here Comes Treble” while there. I know of a certain paper salesman that enjoyed his time there.

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Solopist112@reddit

Yep.

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Synensys@reddit

There are colleges that basically had elite reputations before we entered the age of colleges really competing with each other

But most colleges offer pretty similar reputations, setting, educartion, connections, professors, etc. They need to compete on amenities.

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Pficky@reddit

I mean MIT is on a river across a bridge from a major city and Cambridge itself is a gorgeous city with tons of colleges and fun things to do.

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SkiingAway@reddit

I mean, Yale's campus is quite nice. They obviously don't control/maintain the entire city they are located in.

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thejt10000@reddit

The main Columbia campus is not in Harlem and it is quite nice.

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Puzzleheaded-Ad-9280@reddit

right but Columbia's campus is big and beautiful as is Yale's lol? Columbia is also in Morningside Heights, and borders both Harlem proper, UWS, and Central Park, all of which are also really nice looking. Yes, even the part of Harlem that borders Columbia on the is nice looking.

Source: alum

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tu-vens-tu-vens@reddit

Technical/engineering schools like MIT have for obvious reasons cared less about campus aesthetics than liberal arts schools. Yale is pretty much the OG example of architecturally ambitious college campuses in the US – the character of the surrounding city is immaterial here.

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ritchie70@reddit

Thirty years ago the Engineering campus where I went was a combo of poorly maintained elderly buildings, temporary classrooms and industrial looking buildings.

Now it’s gorgeous. Even has a quad instead of a meandering gravel lot.

But a family could possibly afford the tuition in 1987. Not so much in 2027.

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this_curain_buzzez@reddit

Those are Ivy League or Ivy League adjacent schools though, they can get by mostly on reputation

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ManicPixieDreamHag1@reddit

Right. Community colleges do the same thing on the opposite end of the spectrum— they offer (often very good) degrees at a fraction of the cost, so students aren’t necessarily turned off by a campus that looks like a strip mall (and may once have been one). But a mid-range private or state school charging 20K a year needs to dress up a little even if the educational quality at the undergrad level isn’t always better.

Source: am a professor who has taught at a range of state universities, small private colleges, and CCs.

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Victor_Korchnoi@reddit

I think MIT looks more like suburban office park buildings without the parking lots. Kinda soulless, but not particularly industrial. Plus one gorgeous dome.

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shadracko@reddit

Yale is pretty "big and awesome", regardless of where it is:

https://www.burohappold.com/projects/yale-university-residential-colleges/

Columbia is beautiful. And the idea that Harlem is horrible is several decades out of date. (and if we're trying to be accurate here, it's in Morningside Heights, not Harlem.)

https://www.moth.design/projects/columbia-admissions/

Those two are exactly the sort of "big, awesome" campuses OP is talking about. The fact the Columbia has such a big campus in the middle of Manhattan is amazing enough by itself.

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SaintsFanPA@reddit

I think that is an exaggeration about MIT. And the area around Columbia is quite nice.

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Solopist112@reddit

I prefer the MIT campus to Harvard, personally.

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witchy12@reddit

That's definitely a take.

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abstractraj@reddit

Columbia is beautiful. I used to live on 110th

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Ceorl_Lounge@reddit

At least for the non urban schools it generally is. The big state schools in Michigan all have nice campuses from what I've seen, ditto for Virginia.

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2Asparagus1Chicken@reddit

They have to appeal to trust fund kids

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maceilean@reddit

The best students or the ones who are better off?

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DResq@reddit

Both. Colleges obviously need tuition (and donations) from the richer students, but they also need the high achieving students and student-athletes to increase their rankings and profiles.

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ian9921@reddit

They also just need average students to keep the lights on & fill the dorms.

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

And to then become wealthy donors.

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Lower_Neck_1432@reddit

They aren't all big. There are plenty of colleges/universities that span a few blocks.

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Jdornigan@reddit

The 1862 Morrill Act, sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin S. Morrill, provided states with federal land to sell, using the proceeds to fund colleges focused on agriculture and mechanics.

The law gave every state and territory 30,000 acres per member of Congress to be used in establishing a "land grant" university.

Some of the states kept the land rather than selling it. In some cases the land was close enough to an existing college or university and they were able to expand their campus.

Some colleges and universities with agriculture programs have very large amounts of land used for research. This research benefits the entire world, and because there are programs in various states, it allows each program to focus on research which is appropriate for the climate.

Texas A&M University spans a massive acreage, with over 5,000 acres at the main College Station campus alone, because of its 1876 establishment as a land-grant institution under the Morrill Act, which necessitated large tracts of land for agricultural and mechanical research, alongside significant land grants and donations. The core campus was built upon 2,416 acres donated by Brazos County citizens in 1871. While not actually on main campus, their farm is only about 10 miles from the Texas A&M University main campus and consists of 1,600 acres of crop fields and plots.

When you have a lot of land, it means you can have a large campus, and not be concerned with building densely packed classroom and residential buildings. As a result, it means that there are opportunities for different options to eat, participate in sports, participate in group activities, and live in dorms or apartments with different layouts.

This doesn't mean that colleges and universities in urban areas aren't nice or fun, but they often are limited in size and space and therefore have to be creative in their space utilization to be competitive against suburban or rural institutions.

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JustAnotherDay1977@reddit

I have always found it amazing that the Morrill Act was passed in the middle of the Civil War…and at a point where it was far from certain that the Union would prevail.

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YOLTLO@reddit

Thank you for pointing this out. Surprised I read it without clocking the date.

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Cobra_McJingleballs@reddit

Do you really think UCLA has to be “creative” vs a rural campus?

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velociraptorfarmer@reddit

This doesn't mean that colleges and universities in urban areas aren't nice or fun, but they often are limited in size and space and therefore have to be creative in their space utilization to be competitive against suburban or rural institutions.

For example: the University of Minnesota is smack in the middle of the Twin Cities between Minneapolis and St. Paul. To get around the land constraint, the campus is actually split in half with parts on both sides of the Mississippi River.

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solidspacedragon@reddit

It must really suck to have class on one side one period and on the other the next period.

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adastraperdiscordia@reddit

The GI Bill after WW2 is another reason why we have so many big universities. A lot of Americans served in the war and then had their college paid for by the government.

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doubtinggull@reddit

This is the actual answer thank you for being so thorough

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UnicornMarine@reddit

Land is cheaper in the US compared Europe making it much easier to have a sprawling campus. On top of that it’s not enough to just have good academics, to compete with other colleges for enrollment you need amenities. This can range from coffee shops to restaurants, along with dining halls that compare to either buffets or mid/upper range restaurants off campus. You’ll also see them advertising things like gyms, indoor and outdoor pools, hot tubs, community rooms with games and entertainment. It depends on the campus naturally, as more prestigious campuses can afford more expensive facilities. Some colleges in the USA also advertise student community events, like weekend markets where students will run everything from pop up restaurant concepts to crafts and produce from their gardens.

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flp_ndrox@reddit

They need the space, are often outside major urban areas, and colleges sink a bunch of money into their facilities as a way to attract students and faculty.

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im_on_the_case@reddit

I'd add that some sprawling causes in urban areas were built when the area was rural. UCLA is a good example.

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reyadeyat@reddit

OP, one reason that there are many large universities outside urban centers is that there are many land-grant universities. These universities were built on land that was designated by the federal government for states' use to create universities that would focus on agricultural, technical subjects, and military tactics. The intention was to make practical education accessible to the working class. There's at least one in each state. (There's also some unhappy history here about where the land came from, why some southern states have additional land-grant universities, etc.)

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Naive-Kangaroo3031@reddit

You can also tell which ones are land grants as they often end in "A&M" or have "State" in the name

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Stan_Deviant@reddit

That seems to be more of a southern thing. A lot of the northern land grants are just University of [State]. Or, you know, Cornell.

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velociraptorfarmer@reddit

Here's the main one from each state:
Auburn University
University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Arizona
University of Arkansas
University of California (Berkeley)
University of Connecticut (UCONN)
University of Delaware
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Hawai'i
University of Idaho
University of Illinois
Purdue University
Iowa State University
Kansas State University
University of Kentucky
Louisiana State University (LSU)
University of Maine
University of Maryland
University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass)
Michigan State University
University of Minnesota
Mississippi State University
University of Missouri (Mizzou)
Montana State University
University of Nebraska - Lincoln (Nebraska)
University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada)
University of New Hampshire
Rutgers
Cornell University
North Carolina State University
North Dakota State University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
University of Rhode Island
Clemson University
South Dakota State University
University of Tennessee
Texas A&M University
Utah State University
University of Vermont
Virginia Tech
Washington State University
West Virginia University
University of Wisconsin - Madison (Wisconsin)
University of Wyoming

Keep in mind that there's dozens of others, plus ones in territories, but these are the ones you're most likely to recognize if you follow college sports.

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peter303_@reddit

MIT was a land grant college too. I read that Massachusetts divided its grant.

Before the Morrill Act most colleges taught the liberal arts. Congress foresaw an industrializing nation needed practical eduction too.

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NoAward8304@reddit

Virginia Tech is a nickname. Originally it was Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute. It then changed to Virginia Polytechnic Institute before finally changing to its current name of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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blindside1@reddit

It isn't consistent.

In Washington the University of Washington isn't a land grant, Washington State University is.

University of Oregon isn't, Oregon State University is.

University of Idaho is a land grant.

University of Montana isn't, Montana State University is.

University of Wyoming is.

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Ok-Equivalent-5131@reddit

I think it’s just incorrect - university of Florida, university of Georgia, university of Tennessee, university of Kentucky.

All land grant universities.

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BroughtBagLunchSmart@reddit

That is only for the south, where college was invented to prevent inbreeding in the small villages. It didn't work until they then invented college football.

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weldgib11@reddit

I’m confused. What could that possibly even mean?

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Cerulean_IsFancyBlue@reddit

A land-grant university isn't called that because it was built on granted land. Many schools, large and small, are build on land that was donated or granted to set aside for a campus.

They were schools created or funded under the Morrill Acts, and the land grants were government-owned land that the school could SELL you raise the funds to build the campus etc. Sometimes that land wasn't even in the same state!

For example, New York carefully selected valuable timber land in Wisconsin to fund Cornell University. The resulting management of this scrip by the university yielded one third of the total grant revenues generated by all the states, even though New York received only one-tenth of the 1862 land grant. Overall, the 1862 Morrill Act allocated 17,400,000 acres (70,000 km^(2)) of land, which when sold yielded a collective endowment of $7.55 million.

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bmiller218@reddit

Two of the best things the US did were the Morrill Act and the National Parks act.

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psy-ay-ay@reddit

American culture really really values the overall college experience. It’s not just about the classroom, it’s learning about yourself and where you stand in the world. Building an atmosphere that challenges prospective students with new concepts, perspectives and ideas makes a school very attractive. College serves a social (and by extension, networking) purpose as well. Student life needs to look attractive to matriculate attractive and interesting student body.

Also for the most part, I don’t think we see the field of study of an undergrad as something that dictates their entire professional future maybe as much as other systems (I admit this part here is pretty anecdotal, just my understanding from chats with international friends and colleagues)

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bananajr6000@reddit

Also, larger campuses allow for better economy of scale which is why they cost so much

… WAIT A MINUTE!

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vaspost@reddit

My daughter is in high school and starting to think about college. What it is and what she wants to get out of it. I told her the traditional undergraduate program has 3 main components:

1) It's a reasonably safe environment for young adults to start learning to make decisions on their own. Of course that will mean some occasional mistakes. The goal is to be independent and self sufficient.

2) Get a solid general education and be exposed to people, opinions, and experiences outside the bubble you grew up in. As much as the the general education portion of an undergraduate degree is maligned these days everyone expects their doctor and lawyer to have a solid general education. It's the minimum everyone should strive for.

3) A undergraduate degree should provide some marketable skill or a path forward for additional study.

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UglyInThMorning@reddit

There’s some stuff where you need to do it in undergrad to really do it as a career (engineering comes to mind) but there’s plenty of people who have careers that have nothing to do with their degree. I have a degree in political science and do very technical safety for engineering labs doing aerospace R and D that includes some design work. There’s other people in my role in other departments that have degrees specifically in Environment, Health, and Safety. It can go either way.

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Intrepid_Art_6628@reddit

The answer is not competition for students. All colleges across the planet have that. There are a few factors but the main difference between US higher ed and the rest of the world is our student loan system.

Years ago we created loans that are federally backed. This allowed students to pay for college when their family didn’t have the means. Fast forward and now we have a system that is more or less propped up by a federal loan system. Tuition has skyrocketed because costs were no longer determined by the average family’s ability to pay but the amount of loans a student could take out (we allow 18 year olds take out loans that could buy a mansion). The universities are able to bloat and expand based on this tripled and quadrupled tuition.

This is simplified but the jist of our higher educational reality.

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No_Beautiful_8647@reddit

Cuz ‘Merica !

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fedcomic@reddit

Because America is big and awesome.

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ThaShitDeMuricanSays@reddit

It varies depending on location tbh. Urban campuses will be relatively compact, meanwhile campuses like Cornell University in Ithaca, NY is huge and has a lot of greenery.

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Kianna9@reddit

Speaking just to the size, here's one reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university

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ElijahNSRose@reddit

Because America is really big and spends a lot of money on college.

Too much, in fact.

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7empestSpiralout@reddit

Bc we are awesome people 😎

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fierce_turtle_duck@reddit

Because they're focusing on building big awesome things instead of educating the students their shoving into massive amounts of debt...but hey at least it's fun to watch sports ball.

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Wadsworth_McStumpy@reddit

In a lot of cases, it's because the people paying for the buildings wanted them to look good. When a wealthy alumnus donates a fifty million dollar building, he's going to want something better than a plain brick cube. He'll want limestone columns and statues. He wants people to walk by the Richard J. Moneypants Administration Building and think "Wow! That guy must be awesome!"

(The students don't really think that, but the rich guy thinks they do, and that's enough.)

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Fancy-Restaurant4136@reddit

Unless he's into brutalist architecture. My university campus includes some bespoke buildings that were designed to be UGLY.

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AuroraLorraine522@reddit

You didn’t happen to also go to Pitt, did you? Because we have a lot of brutalist architecture on campus. Some of it’s pretty cool, though.

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Fancy-Restaurant4136@reddit

No, it was just a couple of buildings that didn't match anything else.

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Libertas_@reddit

Are college campuses not that big in other countries?

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Brave-Side-8945@reddit

In Germany the concept of a campus is very rare. Some universities have multiple buildings across the town where you need to commute between in some cases.

If all buildings are in the same place it’s not a separate uni-only area but just multiple buildings in the regular city scenery and street network. Pedestrians cross their way with students.

Student dormitories are also usually scattered across the town. But only a few students live in dormitories. Majority lives in private shared flats with flatmates or even with their parents.

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AuroraLorraine522@reddit

Urban campuses in the US can be like this. I went to the University of Pittsburgh, which is very much IN the city of Pittsburgh. We don’t have an isolated campus, and we’re not even the only college in the neighborhood.

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Libertas_@reddit

Oh, so it's not just the way campuses are built but everything else seems to different as well. Now I want to know more about European universites

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GaryJM@reddit

The city I live in (in Scotland) has two universities. One has about 13,000 students and its main campus looks to be about 52 acres on Google Maps, though the university also has a medical school inside the city's main hospital and it has a botanical garden and sports fields in other parts of the city. The other university has about 5,000 students and its campus looks to be about 4 acres.

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AuroraLorraine522@reddit

Because capitalism.

Colleges are businesses that want to attract the best and brightest. And for those D1 schools where athletics is huge, they also want to attract the best athletes. Universities invest BIG money in their campuses and facilities because campus life is a huge decision factor for the majority of prospective students. The university I attended is $40,000 a year for an out of state student, and when you’re spending that much on anything, it better be pretty impressive.

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SteakAndIron@reddit

Because they're American

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QuarterNote44@reddit

Because, in the university world, if you aren't growing you are dying. So they build.

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DynamiteStorm@reddit

Because the US is big and awesome

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14Rage@reddit

Money

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seaneihm@reddit

Money. The amounts of funding universities in the US can make other countries' best universities pale in comparison.

Look at Seoul National University in South Korea. The most prestigious, esteemed university for a developed nation. Acceptance rate of less than 1%.

The University of Nebraska has a budget three times more.

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Mistriever@reddit

Have you seen tuition prices?

If your college isn't an Ivy League staple with over a century of reputation behind it, you are competing both for students and for donors.

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New-Process-52@reddit

Downside is too much hazing similar to portugal

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GrayEagle825@reddit

Well at major universities, the student population is 50-75,000 students so…

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Sea-Bill78@reddit

We have a lot of choices and all colleges try to convince you to study at their school. In order to impress the students they make awesome campuses.

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candurandu@reddit

My daughter and now my son went/go to Oklahoma State.

It is gorgeous.

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claudiatiedemann@reddit

There are many smaller colleges that don’t have big campuses too.

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arcteryx17@reddit

The amount of money the bring in is insane.

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blipsman@reddit

It's kind of how they've been going back to the first ones like Harvard back in the 1600's and 1700's. I think the expanse of the US meant more people going away to college, meaning more need for residential/recreational areas in addition to classrooms.

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Grouchy-Coffee3018@reddit

Americans love fun and life. That’s why they set up space for not just classrooms but also sports gyms, club hq, frat houses, and dorms to get away from overbearing families

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MyLittlPwn13@reddit

My non-cynical answer is that it's good to have open spaces in cities, and universities often have plenty of money and incentive to put open space on their campuses. I spent lots of time at my hometown university for concerts, gatherings, and parades before I ever got to be a student. The more cynical answer is that big, awesome spaces project wealth, and wealthy campuses attract wealthy students and donors.

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forestinpark@reddit

Cause all schools are at one campus. Other country each specific school is on its own.

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Sleepy_Coffee_Day@reddit

Tuitions are very high, and that money has to be going somewhere LOL.

Partially kidding, but I had a German friend who said, "I don't know why people over here romanticize free college in Germany. It's free, but it SUCKS."

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Brave-Side-8945@reddit

As a German: You get what you pay for.

Just look at average university campuses in Germany. Depression in a box. Straight out of a walking dead episode.

Even worse: most people don’t know it doesn’t have to be this way, and sometimes they even defend the way it is. „Ah nice campus looks are not important, it’s all just fake/superficial/capitalistic“

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Sleepy_Coffee_Day@reddit

My friend said this, too! It's kind of awful American youth will idealize other countries' policies without actually talking to the people who are from those countries.

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Brave-Side-8945@reddit

Your German friend, did they move to the US after they graduated?

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Sleepy_Coffee_Day@reddit

I actually don't know! I need to reach out to her again. The last I heard from her she was going to travel to another state and wanted to explore some more. Very free-spirited person, she inspired me a lot

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Brave-Side-8945@reddit

Oh I thought you met in the US because she moved there. So she just traveled or studied abroad?

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kartoffel_engr@reddit

Argentina is similar. In my business dealings down there, I haven’t been impressed with the quality of the engineer students they push out. Free doesn’t always mean it’s good.

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Sleepy_Coffee_Day@reddit

Agreed. I think it's hypocritical a lot of American youth idealize it without ever talking to people from countries that implement it, or having real curiosity about other people's experiences.

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Prestigious-Craft251@reddit

Cause we're smart and educated and hardworking on this side of the pond.

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SnooSquirrels4991@reddit

Because it’s about the customer and profit.

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Joel_feila@reddit

We have lots of room for things to spread out.

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Background-Humor2642@reddit

Because America is awesome. Haven't you figured that out yet?

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kitesurfr@reddit

Because they have shit loads of money from over charging all the students for paltry educations.

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2Asparagus1Chicken@reddit

I just don’t get it. My brother, who’s an engineer, goes around acting like he’s better than everyone just 'cause he’s got a fancy degree and a job where he pulls in 50k a year. Meanwhile, I'm a tradesman, busting my ass every damn day, making a cool million, and somehow, people still look down on me like I’m some kind of lowlife. It’s wild, man. I spend years working hard, learning my craft, dealing with tough conditions, and what do I get? "Oh, you’re just a tradesman, you don’t have a real job." REALLY? I’m making more than most engineers out there, but somehow, they get all the respect, and I’m still the one getting treated like I’m beneath them. Doesn’t make sense, does it? People think I’m some kind of "uneducated" grunt, but here I am, doing things with my hands, providing for people, and bringing in the big bucks while they’re stuck in some cushy office, pretending their job is so hard just because they play with numbers all day. It’s all some messed-up joke.

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Top-Friendship4888@reddit

For state schools in particular, state governments allocate a lot of funding to schools in lower socioeconomic areas to stimulate the economy. Students come from all over the state and beyond, and they spend money in that community. The university also creates jobs, both on campus, and in the surrounding community.

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slapdashbr@reddit

330M peiple and >60% attendance rate, ther are about 20 million college students in the US

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Carl_Schmitt@reddit

Being a British colony, they are modeled on the British university.

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Elegant-Ad5705@reddit

To compete in order to attract students in a society where the total number of students attending colleges/universities is slowly but steadily shrinking

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Great_Chipmunk4357@reddit

Because Americans are big and awesome. Everything we do is big and awesome. I’m not bragging: it’s part of our culture: our cities, our cars, our movies. It’s a big country with lots of room, lots of empty space, so we try to fill it up.

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Master-Palpitation39@reddit

The college admins gotta do SOMETHING with that tuition. I mean, after they're satisfied with the fancy cars they buy themselves.

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dgillz@reddit

Because the Us is big and awesome/

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Riker_Omega_Three@reddit

It's a cash grab

To make college more appealing to get more money, they turned campuses into mini amusement parks

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GaussAF@reddit

Because people pay more money for them

...and they pay more money for them because there's a large availability of cheap loans given to students in the US that increase in available size every year and the universities build new stuff to justify raising their prices to capture that every year

Imho that's not a good thing, it would be better if they cut back on the polish and just focused on the academics like euro unis do for less $

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SabresBills69@reddit

size depends on enrollment of the school so smaller colleges aren’t going to be as big As large state university. universities that have been around 100+ yrs usually look better than new college campuses crested in the last 40 yrars

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elphaba00@reddit

I went to a small (Division III) private school that housed about 2000 students. I could walk to most of my classes and be there in five minutes from any point on campus. My best friend went to the largest state university an hour away. She had to sometimes take a bus to get to her class.

I now work at one of the larger state universities (but not the one my friend went to). There are buses that circle campus, but I think most students find they can get anywhere by walking. My oldest goes to another state university that has about 6000 students. His farthest walk is a 1/2 mile each way.

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SabresBills69@reddit

The colleges I went to….

main campus was walkable but parts you needed to use a campus bus to get to ( university hospital some upper level, grad housing) was next to the main university but there was a split without A direct connection.

most of school was walkable but there was a secondary campus that was a 5+ minute walk bus ride away

another college overvyears had built a ” modern suburban campus”. I think the med school is what remains on the old city campus. The buildings in the suburban campus were built next to each other which allows walking but it’s surrounded by parking lots. Other side of lots are residential housing. In the campus design they included inside building connections either in ground floor, basement or 2nd floor. Uilfing design created a wind tunnel

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Strange-Badger5626@reddit

Because it's run with one of the largest debt collection funds in the world.....

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Efficient-Panic3506@reddit

because if you’re about to take on 4 years of debt, they at least want you to be like “damn this place looks nice” before signing the papers

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First_Bar_8024@reddit

Student loans to pay astronomical tuition and fees that pays for all the cool stuff and to graduate people with a College Degree who can't find a job to repay the student loans.

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jewboy916@reddit

US campuses are so nice partly because schools compete for tuition-paying students, and the tuition isn't cheap. If you tried to make public universities free at scale without dramatically increasing funding or limiting access, you’d probably end up with much more bare bones/utilitarian campuses.

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ConsciousGreenPepper@reddit

Money. It's a business, not a public-funded education. If your education costs roughly 50k per year per student, you'd have a lot of money to make huge dorms and football fields

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Smooth_Beginning_540@reddit

Adding to what others have said, publicly funded or state schools want to attract students from other states. Public funding is only a portion of a university’s income, and in-state students typically pay lower tuition than out of state students. Newer facilities make a school more enticing.

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MattieShoes@reddit

The federal student loan program.

Situation: Some people can afford college, some can not.

Federal government: We should extend student loans to students

Colleges: Now that students are cost-insensitive because of federal student loans, we can raise the cost freely. *raises rates until some people can afford college, and some can not*

Colleges: What do we do with all this extra money?! *puts list on a dartboard*...

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burner12077@reddit

Short answer: Because thier collective greed coupled with the government guaranteeing massive loans to 18 year olds has made them wealthy beyond belief and they generally have the GDP of a small country.

Then there's sports, google how much goes into a winning college sports program and how much they make off it. Its very far from perfect, but there's a reason people thought that only giving college players freee education was unreasonably low compensation.

Then there is out of state tuition fees. They get to charge like 3-4x more to anyone from outside the state, so if its a big college of international notoriety just imagine the checks they get every semester.

The US system college isnt just broken because its not paid in full by the government, its broken because of so many factors in addition to that, which exagerate the main issue. The government guarantees loans, colleges then cab raise thier rates accordingly because dumb 18 year olds will pay. Kids are pressed to go to college by friends and family, rightfully so, but often they are not pressed to be smart picking thier major, just "following your dreams" doesnt mean that dollars make cents, if you tell an 18 year old to do that they go and spend tens of thousands out of state on a useless degree and drop out. No seriously, statistically close to half of all students drop out without a degree and many still carry debt from it. Then there is the low personal finance education for most kids in the country coupled with the existing "debt culture" most kids dont even blink twice at the idea of borrowing 80k for college, I mean, why shouldnt they, thier parents probably owe that much on thier two brand new cars. Colleges are happy to supply this also, with many creating degree programs that any educated individual must know are useless to over 90% of students. But hey, as long as it brings cash. A jobless 18 year old cant get a 40k car loan, but the can get a 40k college loan on a useless degree.

Ill conclude with this: In my humble opinion the biggest problem with the college system isn't that the government doesnt provide it for free, its that our government has created a system that is midway between the free market and socialized college by taking the worst of both worlds and it has snowballed college prices into what they are today as a result. If Sally Mae had never been incepted and everyone had to either save cash or get thier parents to pay for it, it would definitely still suck and be far from an ideal system, but it would eliminate the debt problem largely and it would also help drive college costs down. Im not saying thats the fix and indeed it wouldnt be my personal preference, im just trying to say that anything, literally anything would be better than what we have now.

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Frosty-Escape-4497@reddit

Cornell, maybe. Sits on top of a hill and is near Lake Cayuga and wine country. The weather could be better.

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Danibear285@reddit

Mine was a shithole tbh.

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Doomdoomkittydoom@reddit

Because we had a lot of space. The ones in the early urban centers weren't so much, but where they could get some open farm land or the like, boom.

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FreeStateOfPortland@reddit

It’s a country of 350M people. As far “awesome”? What are you talking about?

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balthisar@reddit

You haven't visited them all. My wife likes to visit campuses of cities we visit, and most recently we visited Vanderbilt. Go visit that, and you'll immediately be dispelled of the notion that all campuses are big and awesome.

Locally we have Wayne State, which is a great school, but makes no pretensions of being anything but an urban school, and that's okay, it owns it. But other schools like to pretend they have nice campuses, and don't.

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n00bdragon@reddit

We pour unlimited amounts of (usually borrowed) money into them.

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Brave_Speaker_8336@reddit

Well the money has to go somewhere doesn’t it

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ian9921@reddit

And that "somewhere" is the football team. But the leftovers have to go somewhere lol.

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Seattle_Seahawks1234@reddit

Most football teams make profit

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MrRaspberryJam1@reddit

Yep, why else would a many traditional basketball schools that were once pretty good (I’m looking at you Syracuse and Maryland) completely fall off once they started emphasizing football? Because football makes more money, it becomes the school’s priority even if the team is garbage.

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shadracko@reddit

No, "most" decidedly do not.

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MrRaspberryJam1@reddit

My school didn’t have football, it didn’t even have any D1 sports.

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bigmt99@reddit

You’re gonna have a hard time finding a football program that doesn’t make money for the school, almost every college athletic department is at least partially funded by their flagship football program

And the ones that don’t make money, well that’s just the price for student recreations same as every other sport on campus

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MrRaspberryJam1@reddit

They’re not all so “big and awesome”. I went to a local CUNY school, no one lived on campus and most people were older and working jobs. That was my college experiences.

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MuchDrawing2320@reddit

The engineering and business buildings at my old university were amazing and the humanities building was 60 years old and falling apart. But that’s to be expected.

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Lusiric9983@reddit

Well, everyone does complain student loans. I view colleges less as places for getting information anymore, and more like corporations trying to win over the next 'customer'.

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TemperMe@reddit

It doesn’t hurt that many universities were built on or by religious groups. The Duke University campus is stunning with its gothic architecture

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martlet1@reddit

America takes a lot of shit about education but almost every community in America with over 30000 people has a college or university. And then smaller towns will have extension campuses

Universities really took off after 1890 when the Industrial Revolution needed more engineers, nurses, teachers, business, and math majors.

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PowerfulFunny5@reddit

They generally have a comprehensive planning committee / process that that involves architects, urban planning, and landscaping that work together maintain a quality layout, aesthetic and flow.

Which is different than most areas that are individual buildings next to each other.

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junkcollector79@reddit

University of Toronto is pretty big, the main campus is pretty much right downtown, and something like 165 acres. Some really nice buildings, too.

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shinyRedButton@reddit

They’re businesses and that’s part of the marketing. Yeah sure, you’re 17, have no real concept of money and it’s 100k per year to go here, but did you see that park bench next to the old growth oak tree?

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MukadeYada@reddit

They really just spiraled completely out of control over the last thirty years or so. Parents wanted more and more amenities for their kids. Colleges noticed that kids would take on an almost unlimited amount of debt. Student loans started getting handed out like candy.

So campuses got into this, like, amenity arms race. Libraries that looked like cathedrals. Robots that would deliver food right to your room. On-campus ski resorts. Gigantic ball pits. Petting zoos. Aquariums. Maids to do 100% of students' laundry. It's just gotten insane.

And now we've got kids graduating with a quarter-million dollars in debt and people questioning: wait, was that actually worth it, or are our graduates now poorer than our tradesmen?

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pudding7@reddit

What university has any of those things?

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Few-Anteater7783@reddit

Middlebury. Colgate had one but due to insurance issues it got closed down, but the hill is still there.

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SportTheFoole@reddit

And now we've got kids graduating with a quarter-million dollars in debt and people questioning: wait, was that actually worth it, or are our graduates now poorer than people in the trades?

I’m not acknowledging the other fantastical claims you made, but the “now we’ve go kids graduating with a quarter million dollars in debt” is easily debunked.

According to the association for land grant universities, 80% of students graduate with less than $30k debt. And just under graduate with no debt at all. . This Pew Research shows that 1% of students owe more than $100k

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Decent_Cow@reddit

Great bait mate I rate 8/8

PS: student loans are not unlimited

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KartFacedThaoDien@reddit

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Numerous_Delay_6306@reddit

because they are just fighting with each other lol, they want their campuses to amuse new kids

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

Because they cost $25k/year?

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Eat_Locals@reddit

To reflect how big and awesome America is!

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LomentMomentum@reddit

Many are vibrant, buzzing places to live or visit, with great retail, restaurant, and cultural offerings.

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thatsnotideal1@reddit

GI Bill post WWII Korea meant lots of vets coming in all at once, then the Baby Boom, so many huge numbers of incoming students. Many state schools were open/non-competitive admission and cheap. The Great Society programs of the 1960’s valued education and an educated populous so more and larger schools were built

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wheresmyadventure@reddit

To attract and retain students/talent. When I was looking at colleges as a teen, the beauty of the campus did influence my decision more so than it probably should have.

Went to Kansas State but also consider University of Kansas (prettier imo) but too close to home.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

Because they have several thousand 18-22 year olds living there, they need to have a lot of space and forms of entertainment.

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DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit

Tuition is high and they also get a ton of money from endowments, donations and patents. Big colleges have a shitload of money to spend

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xSparkShark@reddit

They charge a fuckton of money to get in and many have hundreds of millions, if not billions waiting in their endowment fund to be spent on something.

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Active_Scallion_5322@reddit

Blank checks from the US government at the expense of the students futures

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sammysbud@reddit

Lmao I work at a public university and I would like to know where these “blank checks” are, bc all I hear is budget cuts from the state and federal gov. Especially this administration. And all money we get is tied up in legislation for very specific purposes.

Endowments are the real place that the money comes in for real estate, often from the uber wealthy who want their name on a building.

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Active_Scallion_5322@reddit

Federal student loans

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sammysbud@reddit

Ohhh I interpreted your comment as blank checks to the schools. Hadn’t had my voice yet lol

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SquashDue502@reddit

Because we pay approximately a bajillion dollars to go to them

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Royal_T95@reddit

Because we sell our souls to them to be indebted forever, so they have to make them as appealing as possible to steal all our money

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

In addition to the many helpful remarks made here, there's the over-credentialization of many US jobs. If you don't want to be flipping burgers all your life, you need some kind of higher ed anymore. This began in the '80s and really took off in the '90s. It coincided with the loss of many jobs that had been available to young people right out of high school, like factory jobs and secretarial work. Factory jobs went overseas and computers meant offices no longer needed typing pools and the like. Only the most senior leaders got to have an admin assistant, whereas before, there might be several typists to handle even a mid-level employee's correspondence.

The inevitable result was that more young people started going college. What happens when a small university suddenly sees enrollment increase on a massive scale? They need more dorms, more cafeterias, more classrooms, more faculty, more staff, more of everything.

And young people, faced with perhaps three good options academically, could choose the one with the best amenities. The best dorms, the best variety of food, the most recreational offerings, etc. So it turned into a sort of arms race.

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jennyjenny223@reddit

Because your mom is so fat

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pikkdogs@reddit

Money! They got a lot of it.

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Individual-Guess-364@reddit

The schools get too much from the federal government, money secured for them by their senators and reps.

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1Negative_Person@reddit

Ask your mom.

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Civilized_Monke69@reddit (OP)

Haha

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Tangentkoala@reddit

You know thats a good question. Honestly rhe college i went to started out super small with 2 or 3 buildings.

Then it just expanded into a behemoth of 15 buildings.

My college is designed to be affordable and provide education to the masses regardless of social status or wealth. Tuition was 3K a semester? Beats out the UC schools at 10K a semester.

I think they just transitioned to creating an inclusive community and environment. Many small town cities made the college there lifelines. Which is why college basketball and football is so huge. So these universities prop up these cities and create massive revenue.

We our entering dangerous territory of these schools getting to big though and pricing out a lot of college students.

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