NYU Students Live Like Kings and You Can Barely Afford a Walkup Studio
Finally, NYU students are getting some return for their enormous investment: free ice and every-other-day maid service. Too bad there’s a catch.
Seems the university—currently 22,280 undergrads strong—can’t house all its coeds. So hundreds of lucky students have been toiling away the semester in $300-a-night midtown hotel rooms, complete with maid service, cucumber water and gym access. And they’re getting the experience—an approximately $36,000 value—for less than eight grand a semester. Plus the nearby J Crew gives a sick student discount.
What a fucking life.
But lest you think suite living is perfect, it’s not. In fact, the undergrad Eloises of midtown recently shared their gripes with the New York Times and frankly, I don’t envy them (of course I envy them, everyone paying New York City rents should envy them). Here’s the dark underbelly of the NYU student housing shortage:
- Room service is expensive: “‘Two eggs your way,’ which comes with a side of bacon or sausage, is $14, in addition to the 17 percent service charge.”
- Midtown is literally dozens of blocks away from classes in Greenwich Village.
- It takes a long time—like half an hour even, I’m guessing—to get downtown, even with the aid of MetroCards paid for by the university.
- And there are s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o many tourists around: (“ ‘I don’t want to sound like a stereotypical N.Y.U. kid saying: Oh, I hate Midtown,’ said Zach Barela, a 19-year-old-sophomore majoring in acting, ‘but it does get so crowded that walking like a few blocks can take forever.’”)
- Hotel security makes it harder to throw ragers.
“I’d definitely give it three-and-a-half, four stars,” one student tells the Times. It’s fine, I guess.
