[Mountain_Skies]

Not on the same scale as rock stars and athletes but pretty much every college town is now packed to the gills with "luxury" apartments selling a lavish lifestyle. For many students, their college years will be the peak of quality of life when it comes to their living situation. Compare this to the residence halls of old with one shared bathroom per floor and multiple students sleeping in the same small room.

In the 1980s, the State of Alabama was sued by prisoners who claimed their prison cells constituted cruel and unusual punishment. One of the defenses the state used was that the student dorms at Auburn University were not only more bare than the prison cells, and lacking in basic amenities like air condition that the prisoners were demanding, the students had to pay to live there (the state won). Apartment complexes in Auburn and other college towns now are in wars with each other over the most attractive amenity packages for their residents. Because so many students take the largest loan amounts offered instead of just what is needed, a huge industry has popped up to convert that loan money into the type of experiences that appeal to those in their teens and early 20s. The lifestyle experience of the contemporary university student is nothing like those of the era pre-easy money loans (that is, when the government start guaranteeing and later issuing loans directly).