See Why Marist’s Fancy New Dorm Rooms Just Ranked Top 10 in US

A Hudson Valley college's plush living quarters have just been ranked as some of the best in the nation.

My how times have changed. As an alumnus of Marist College, I can honestly say that I never considered the living situation during my four years as "luxurious." In fact, back in the '90s, I might have used adjectives like "ugly", "small" and "smelly" to describe my room in Leo Hall.

Apparently, college living is much different now. While we used to dine on cold Pop-Tarts and ramen, Marist students now have a dining hall that looks like something out of Hogwarts with a sushi bar, smoothies, and an on-campus Rossi's Deli. It's a far cry from the mozzarella sticks we used to call "dirt sticks."

According to a recent survey of college students by The Princeton Review’, the Marist dorms have been ranked in the top ten in the nation and the top three in the Northeast. And if the photos that have been posted in a press release from the college are any indication, the ranking is well deserved.

Gone are the institutional light blue painted walls made of cinderblock. Instead, the new Marist dorm rooms are painted in calming hues and have soft lighting. The uncomfortable metal-framed beds that were too small for anyone to get a good night's sleep in have also been replaced with comfortable, wooden furniture and mattresses that I can only assume don't have springs sticking out into your back.

Marist College currently houses over 3,000 students in suites, apartments, townhouses and traditional dorms on its Poughkeepsie campus. During a recent visit, I noticed that the freshman dorms looked exactly the same from the outside as when I attended 30 years ago. However, it's clear that much was done to improve the interior of these rooms over the past three decades.

Of course, the quality of a student's living experience also relies on the cleanliness of their roommates. I'm sure that the Red Foxes that gave their dorm rooms such glowing reviews don't have suitemates that are too lazy to empty the garbage so they instead created a "garbage pile" in the kitchen that's removed once a month with a snow shovel.

The 2023 Princeton Review's guide to the best colleges also awarded Marist as having some of the happiest students in the country. The college ranked in the top 25 for happiness and the students' "love of their college."

I mean, if you're living in luxury like this what's not to love?