Students enjoy ‘bougie living’ as Boston-area colleges rent out entire floors of HOTELS

University students in Boston are being housed in luxury hotels, including one where 11 students were caught partying and were then thrown out of school, as social distancing guidelines were put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Undergraduates enrolled at several Hub-area colleges and universities are amazed at their new living quarters this semester, which includes king-size beds, personal baths, a housekeeper who changes the sheets, Nespresso machines, and scenic views of downtown.

Some students, however, appear to have taken advantage of their good fortune.

Northeastern University announced on Friday that it has dismissed the students who were found together in a room at the Westin Copley Place Hotel on Wednesday night without masks on their faces and not socially distanced.

The university released a statement on Friday saying that the 11 students are ‘no longer part of the Northeastern community for the fall semester.’

The students were asked to move out immediately and get tested for COVID-19. If they test positive, they are to enter quarantine and then leave.

The university said that it will not provide refunds to the students for housing payments.

Last week, Northeastern sent a warning to students after dozens of them vowed they would violate social distancing guidelines and have parties in their living quarters.

Northeastern has reserved 11 floors of the Westin Copley Place this semester for its students, according to The Boston Globe.

Before the pandemic, a room at the Westin Copley Place would have set guests back in excess of $460 a night.

Since tourism has been ground to a halt during the pandemic, however, colleges and universities that have invited students back to campus have rented out hotels to house undergrads so as to enable them to remain socially distanced.

Emerson College, another local school, is housing some 200 of its students at the W Hotel. Before COVID-19, a room at the W would cost upwards of $600 a night.

‘It’s been crazy,’ Tom Teahouse, 20-year-old Emerson junior, told The Boston Globe.

‘I took a bath the other day.’

Another Emerson student, junior Brianna Arends, said the new housing conditions are quite a contrast to her freshman year dorms.

‘We didn’t even have a living room,’ she said of her first-year living quarters that includes four bedrooms for eight people.

‘It was like a little baby kitchenette and a hallway.’

This fall, Arends, who is studying visual and media arts, will have an altogether different living experience.

‘When I’m walking in, I’m across the street looking at this place, and I’m like, “This is really where I live?”’ she said.

‘It’s more space than I can ever do anything with,’ said 19-year-old Emerson sophomore Richard Lathrop.

‘It’s bougie living,’ said Brynn O’Connor, 19, who is majoring in journalism at Emerson.

‘My mom’s like, “You better not get used to this”.’

Another Emerson student posted a video to social media showing off his living spaces which include a Nespresso machine, floor-to-ceiling glass encasing of a large shower, a king-size bed, and personal thermostate.

‘Welcome to my Emerson College single *dorm*,’ the student wrote. 

‘I get to spend this semester in a hotel.’ 

Other schools have also booked rooms at expensive hotels.

The New England Conservatory is housing students at Revolution, a hostel in the city’s South End.

Suffolk University has placed some 280 students at the Wyndham in Beacon Hill, the DoubleTree near Tufts Medical Center, and The Boxer in the West End, the Globe reported.