"You can build new campuses or bigger dorms, but I'm not sure New Jersey will ever have the draw," he said.

College and university enrollment nearly doubled between 1970 and 2001, to 15.9 million from 8.6 million, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but many schools have not built new dorms in decades.

He said that it might make sense for other CUNY campuses to build dorms, too, but that he wanted to see how City College works out before starting others.

In the war for top talent, schools rush to build fancier dorms, glitzier student unions, Nobel-ready labs, Olympic-quality gyms and Broadway-style theaters.

Coles was the first president to build dorms for seniors and saw the sizes of his student body, faculty, and campus grow dramatically.

American colleges and universities still need support to build new buildings for overcrowded departments and new dorms for students, not to build a climbing wall or a hot tub.

It was argued that this is because St. John's could no longer offer the housing stipend to its basketball players that it was allowed when it built dorms.

She did tell me that the street has seen an increase in its rodent population ever since New York University sucked dry the underground Minetta Brook to build dorms on Washington Square West.

"When we moved into that community there was a nice stand of trees separating us from the school's residence halls, but when they started building new dorms they tore all the trees out," Ms. Vignona said.

CSUB is in the initial stages of building new dorms (referred to as Living Residences) on the northeast side of campus.