The simple solution might be to build nice, affordable on campus housing. We should not be spending over $80,000 per bed on dorms at Mississippi State. RS Means puts out cost data every quarter on commercial construction costs.
According to this quarter's data, the median build price across the country for dorms is $256/SF. Add in the cost adjustment for Mississippi (vs LA or Boston) and it's $228/SF. At 330 SF/bed (Dogwood and Davenport which I hear are great, have 330 SF/bed) you end up with 1275 new beds for $96 million. Or if you want to add recreation you can build union style facilities for $520/SF and build 950 beds of dorm and 40,000 SF of union/food court for $96 million.
At 412 beds and $96 million you could rebuild a student union the size of Colvard (110,000 SF) inside of the dorms and still come in $10 million under budget.
I don't think there is anything crooked going on, just ignorance. The bureaucracy of the university seems to think students and parents want more extravagance and amenities, but all I ever hear is we want college to cost less. Bureaucrats by nature want bigger budgets so they can increase the size of their departments and thus their salary/importance etc. It's the same in civilian world except for one caveat... We have to do it cost effectively in order to grow profits. Medical and University seems to skip cost effectively and just drive up the prices.
I would love to see our university become the value leader in education. Let's figure out how to make it cheaper not more luxurious. Right now 4 year degrees are very close to becoming a bad investment and opulence like this is a big reason why.
