I suppose the grad students who are complaining about their new housing could just go to another school, but I see their point about the roommates and the cost.

Colleen Flaherty of Inside Higher Ed reports.

‘Community of Scholars’

Graduate students typically don’t live in luxury, let alone in space that has intellectual goals. Many grad students feel fortunate to have housing that is reasonably safe and affordable. So why would graduate students at the University of Michigan be raising objections to one of the most ambitious ideas in recent years for graduate student housing? For starters, many say that while some social engineering may be normal for housing college freshmen, they object to the idea of the university — which has control of so much of their professional life — telling them where to live, and with whom.

“Most graduate and professional students are adults in their 20s and 30s and […] would not choose to share living space with six other people,” said Phillip Saccone, president of Rackham Student Government, the student body group for the Rackham Graduate School and a Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology, describing the results of a recent organization poll of graduate and professional students on the $185 million project. “Several students went on to say that such a design feels too much like existing undergraduate dorms.”

Additionally, he said, the preliminary price tag for a room – some $1,000 a month — is well beyond the financial reach of the typical graduate student and is much higher than off-campus living options in the Ann Arbor market. Although there’s no “typical” rent in the immediate area, where everything from luxury apartments to older, shared houses is available to students, $1,000 a month could easily secure a student a private apartment. Co-living options can be found for $500 a month per student, before utilities, or perhaps less, depending on situation.

But university officials disagree, saying the new residence’s unusual configuration – with seven graduate students assigned to a unit, to foster communication across disciplines – will create a “community of scholars” whose target monthly rent will compete with other local housing options.