Students walk through the newly opened Campus Town at The College of New Jersey on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015, in Ewing Township, N.J. The $120 million mixed-use complex of buildings includes apartments for nearly 450 students, with more to come in a second phase of development, along with a book store and other businesses. | AP

As private developers see big dollars in dorms, college students face high housing costs Carla Yanni can?t decide if the most over-the-top student housing amenity she?s seen is the pet-washing station at a LaSalle University dorm or the lazy river winding through an apartment complex near Arizona State. A professor at Rutgers, Yanni did extensive research on the evolution of how and where students live for her new book, Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory. These eyebrow-raising features might spark ?kids these days? headlines, but they aren?t representative of the average college experience. Instead, Yanni says, they?re best understood as symbols of the forces now shaping college housing. Strained university budgets and increased competition for enrollees have led schools to do everything they can to impress wealthy prospective students.
The race for students? funds is one of the factors fueling a boom in private, university-focused housing developers over the last few decades?and one of the ways in which the college housing market now reflects the stratified real estate market at large.
?This market has go...