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In the past, college students living on campus often had to share their dorm’s shower area with many others.

But times have changed.

鈥淎 鈥榙orm’ is not a term you hear very much anymore,鈥� said Brian Stroup, an assistant director of housing at Oregon State University. 鈥淎 dorm sounds like a place where you just eat and sleep.鈥�

Students want housing that resembles apartments rather than traditional dormitories, Stroup said. Tony Church, a project manager for , said developers are eager to provide it.

鈥淚t’s one of the few housing markets that’s actually hot right now,鈥� he said.

Stroup said OSU’s International Living-Learning Center, which opened last year, is an example of how student housing is changing. The building follows a model already popular in the United Kingdom in which a seamless web is created between living and learning by placing offices and classrooms in the middle.

Many of the building’s rooms have private bathrooms. Small clusters of students share spacious living rooms with flat-screen TVs. All students have wireless Internet connections. But they don’t have everything, Stroup admitted.

鈥淭here is still no air conditioning,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat’s something that is still years off.鈥�

Of course, Church said the International Living-Learning Center is the exception to the rule among student housing at Oregon’s colleges and universities. Most on-campus housing is still awfully spare, he said. As a result, he added, private developers are trying to fill the gap.

鈥淭he Oregon University System is behind in updating the campus housing they provide,鈥� Church said. 鈥淣o one wants to live in a 1960s dorm room with a gang bathroom. What we’re seeing is private developers competing with what the institution is providing.鈥�

Lease Crutcher Lewis recently completed student housing projects at Western Oregon University in Monmouth and Pacific University in Forest Grove. The projects meet students’ expectations for apartment-style living, Church said. Their tastes work well for developers, he added.

鈥淵ou can turn these projects into multifamily residential units if the market changes,鈥� he said.

Stroup said 80 percent of OSU’s freshmen live in on-campus residence halls. Each year, about 400 to 600 sophomores return to the residence halls. Altogether, Oregon State’s residence halls have a capacity of 4,300 students.

鈥淚 think that’s fairly standard for a land grant college like us,鈥� Stroup said. 鈥淎 small, private school might look different.鈥�

Something else is different. Students no longer are segregated by gender; almost everything is co-ed. Of some 50 student co-ops provided by OSU, only four are divided by gender and only one is reserved for males.

Stroup said the nature of student housing is determined a lot by the students themselves. Many are in their 30s and 40s, and dorm life is obviously not for them, he said.

鈥淚t’s not the 17-, 18-year-old student just getting out of high school that is the big boom demographic these days,鈥� Stroup said.

Church added that something else is evident at campuses in Oregon.

鈥淵ou look at the license plates in Corvallis and Eugene, and it’s all California and even foreign students,鈥� he said.

Out-of-state students paying out-of-state tuition and fees can pay $650 to $700 a month in rent, Church said.

鈥淭hey want something a little sexy,鈥� he said.

Styles range from 鈥渦rban chic鈥� to 鈥淥regon hippie,鈥� Church said. Urban campuses like Portland State University make creativity a bit more difficult, he added.

鈥淭here’s so many eyes in downtown Portland and people telling you what you can and can’t do,鈥� he said. 鈥淓ugene is a little more laid back.

鈥淓veryone is targeting these under-utilized markets. It’s like a race.鈥�

Jack Dillin, a fourth-year student at OSU, said no one was racing to meet his expectations when he arrived in Corvallis.

鈥淚 really didn’t have any expectations,鈥� he said. 鈥淎ll I expected was a clean bathroom and a place to sleep.鈥�

He lived in a 10-foot-by-12-foot room. The International Living-Learning Center may be more ritzy, Dillin said, but most on-campus housing is far less attractive.

鈥淓verything is pretty old,鈥� he said, adding that most students prefer to live off campus. 鈥淭he general consensus is that townhouses have the best features.鈥�