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Comment by thosakwe | Hacker News Reader

I guess this article is just about the UK. I don’t know how it works over there, but at my school in the US, the residence halls vary pretty widely in price, and so the factor that really decides where you live is how much you can afford.

I’m also an RA, and to put this in the nicest way possible, let’s just say there doesn’t seem to be a housing agenda with the specific goal of creating diverse communities (IYKYK).

Again, I don’t really know how it works in the UK, but at least at my school, I’d say it’s definitely “by chance.”

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> at my school in the US, the residence halls vary pretty widely in price

interesting, would you mind sharing what kind of school you went to? I attended a private liberal arts school and a medium-sized state university and both charged a flat rate for housing. there was basically a lottery weighted by seniority and disciplinary record to get into the best dorms.

Dorms varied in price like this when I went to MIT about a decade ago. I presumed it was due to the variation in building age/quality as well as amenities offered (such as dining hall etc).

Harvard College’s housing is pretty variable yet they don’t charge different rates. I’ve heard of schools having apartments for rent that varied (ones that have little housing) but never different rates for dorm housing.

I went to a state school, and there was some pricing variation in the 90s for traditional double rooms, four rooms with a shared common area and a fancy suite.

Now they have single apartments, suites with individual bathrooms, etc. Cost ranges from $8500-$13000.

I graduated from Northeastern University in Boston this year. (Go huskies!)

Freshman year, all students have the same residence halls. (with some edge cases)

After that, the residence halls were priced according to their age. There were categories like 'Economy', 'Deluxe', and 'Luxury', with discounted variations like Economy Single, Double, Triple, etc. Newer buildings were nicer and had more amenities and were therefore more expensive.

> the residence halls vary pretty widely in price, and so the factor that really decides where you live is how much you can afford

What affect does that have on the social environment? Are there status differences based on residence hall, for example? Is it racially segregated like many cities are (partly as a result of economic segregation)?

It's interesting to compare your school to many U.S. cities, which are trying to reduce economic segregation[0] - your school seems to codify it. Why not at least mix larger and smaller rooms in the same dorms?

[0] See this article on a major policy shift in Minneapolis, for example:

https://slate.com/business/2018/12/minneapolis-single-family...

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