You don't have to be a multimillionaire to live in a $17 million, 40,000-square foot home. You don't even have to have a college degree, or a job. You just have to have happened to pledge Delta Zeta at the University of Alabama. As the Wall Street Journal reports, that chandelier-studded house—home to 66 women—is just part of a larger trend in the sorority scene, where accommodations for members is increasingly becoming high-end, and eye-poppingly so. The upper echelon of sorority houses now have eight-figure price tags attached and include perks like blow-dry bars in the bathrooms, backpack storage rooms, and craft rooms for making signs emblazoned in Greek letters.
The houses are generally owned by the Greek organizations themselves, which have been providing housing for their members since the late 1800s. Some of the cost isn't because of the glitz and glam—one Mississippi architect notes the requirement that they be ADA-compliant and adhere to commercial-building standards ups the cost—and the chapters see them as key recruiting tools. "We're all trying to recruit the best, the brightest, most amazing women," is how the facility corporation board president for the University of Oklahoma's Kappa Alpha Theta chapter put it. "It is a competitive disadvantage if other houses have beautiful facilities." Their nearly 100-year-old home will soon get a $14 million renovation and have 10,000 square feet added to it. (More sororities stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
