I can't begin to understand this growing desire among aging baby boomers to spend retirement trying to relive college experiences in a development near campus.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me outline it quickly. More baby boomers went to college than any previous generation, they tend to be nostalgic about things (Where have all the flowers gone, etc.) and they have lots of money.
Colleges and universities understandably have decided to tap into this resource by building age-restricted communities, either by themselves or partnering with big developers, near campus.
Alumni buy in, and then only have to travel a couple of miles to the stadium every Saturday in autumn to cheer on the Groaning Gorillas of Ivy as they take on the Anxious Cheetahs of Hi-Nella A&M, and then walk over to the Chew 'N' Choke, Ivy's traditional off-campus watering hole, to celebrate.
For many years after grad school, I had the same nightmare each September -- about the time I would have been getting ready to start classes if I still were in school. The scene would open on a high school classroom, being lectured by a teacher for not showing up for a test. Then, from my subconscious, I hear, "Wait a minute, I have a B.A. and M.A. and I'm done with this."
Then I wake up and have breakfast.
The housing being offered to alumni is, of course, not the same as they were given when they were students. If it were, no one would ever come back.
My freshman-year dorm was a former barracks, one of three built 20 years before to accommodate sailors going to college on the GI bill. I had two roommates. They were great, but the situation was unpleasant: not enough room, too much noise.
Half my sophomore year was spent in the newest dorm (two years old) and half in the oldest (1822). Junior year in old 1904, senior year as a proctor in the newest dorm, where one student kept rabbits in his closet and half a floor ended up doing time for selling drugs.
How we ever were able to get an education I'll never know.
My son spent four years in a 1920s hotel turned dorm on Lake Michigan, which, I understand, is being converted to condos. Many colleges and universities are finding it easier to ease restrictions on off-campus living than building and maintaining dormitories, some of which can be sacrificed for lots of money to fuel the residential building boom in lots of cities.
The trend is a boon to investors, as Michael H. Zaransky illustrates in his new book, Profit by Investing in Student Housing (Kaplan Publishing, $18.95).
At the same time educational institutions are finding it more expensive to build housing; the college population is exploding. High-growth states such California, according to Zaransky's example, will experience a 34.1 percent increase between 2000 and 2010, which makes them a prime target for investors.
But be selective about targets for your money, he says. Zaransky favors public universities over private institutions because private ones usually have more restrictive housing policies for students - many make them live on campus for all four years. They also tend to cap enrollment at lower numbers than state universities.
My graduating class at my private college in 1972 totaled 300; 34 years later, it's just over 400, which keeps class size at 18 and student-faculty ratio of 1:11.
At the state university I attended for grad school (I commuted as did most graduate students), 24,000 students are now spread over several campuses, several thousand more than when I graduated 22 years ago. Graduate school enrollment is down, however, and they tend to be the target audience for off-campus housing from the day they arrive.
Zaransky's message: Be smart, but don't be afraid to take a risk because the returns can be high. On-campus housing, as you can see from my own examples, is usually old and not in very good shape, since you are dealing with children. Like the rabbit-keeper of my year as a dorm proctor, the money that his parents paid meant he had carte blanche to do what he wanted.
Anything you come up with is probably better, and you will be able to control the actions of a few students much more easily than a university administration trying to keep lid on 20,000.
Stick with grad students, Philadelphia multifamily developer Carl Dranoff told my small investor class at Temple University's Real Estate Institute a few weeks ago.
"Grad students, especially medical students, are serious, and want a quiet environment in which to live and work," he said. "Undergrads, on the other hand, just want to have fun."
