The Single Room Revolution: Are Universities Trading Community for Privacy?

When I think about university housing, one of the biggest changes I see is pretty simple: students increasingly want their own room.

And honestly, I understand why.

Students want privacy. They want somewhere quiet to sleep, study and decompress. They don't necessarily want to negotiate lights, noise, guests and cleaning with a stranger for an entire academic year.

Universities are responding. In the UK, single and en-suite accommodation has grown significantly, while Australia and New Zealand have increasingly adopted a model where students have private bedrooms but share kitchens, lounges and other communal spaces. At the University of Queensland's International House, for example, all 242 residents have individual rooms alongside shared spaces and programming.

But it does make me wonder: are we giving students more privacy at the expense of community?

There is already plenty of evidence that university students are lonely. A recent UK survey found that 70% of students living in university halls had experienced loneliness or isolation, with 45% saying they struggled to meet people outside their rooms.

That doesn't mean single rooms cause loneliness. But they do remove one very easy source of connection: the person living next to you, or in your room.

A roommate can be frustrating. They always are frustrating. They can also be the person who notices that you haven't left your room all day, asks how your exam went, or becomes the first friend you make at university.

They also teach us things. How to compromise. How to have difficult conversations. How to deal with someone whose habits are completely different from ours.

We shouldn't romanticize roommate conflict. Some situations are genuinely unhealthy and students absolutely need options. But not every disagreement is a failure of the residential experience. Sometimes, learning how to resolve conflict is part of growing up.

There is another uncomfortable question for universities: what happens when nobody notices a students’ distress?

I'm not suggesting roommates should monitor each other (emotionally or medically). They shouldn't. But when every student has a private room, universities lose some of that natural visibility into how students are doing.

So perhaps the answer isn't more doubles or more singles.

Perhaps it's better design.

Give students the privacy they increasingly want, but then make the rest of the building somewhere they actually want to be. Good kitchens. Comfortable lounges. Shared dining. Outdoor spaces. Small gathering areas. Programming that students actually enjoy.

The best international examples are already doing this well.

Private room. Shared life.

That might be the future of university housing — and I think that's a much more interesting conversation than simply asking how many single rooms we can build.