The afternoon sessions also probe "the turn," a two-week period for managers and owners to redo units between move-outs and move-ins. "It's a madhouse. That's one of the important things that people don't realize and it's a critical issue in student housing," Wilhelm says.

Private developers of student housing, whether on campus or off, are relying on luxury hotel amenities and highly trained property managers and marketing teams as bait for a generation of students who've turned their backs on dormitories of yesteryear so they can live like they did or better than at home. Studies show that 70% or 6.6 million students live off campus--and developers are building in perks like theaters, top-of-the-line fitness centers, tanning salons, coffee shops, X-box game rooms and WiFi areas as drawing cards. Private bedrooms with broadband access and baths with community living areas are the norm.

To help the industry understand its market, the NAA's keynote speaker yesterday was Cam Marston, COO of Mobile, AL-based Marston Communications, a generational-focused consulting firm to help corporate America deal with a new breed of Gen X and Millennial workers whose attitudes and demands are vastly different from employees of the past. The bottom line is finding and retaining employees and tenants alike in a generation accustomed to privilege, technology and instant gratification.

"You live with them. You work with them. And, they live in your rooms," Marston told the NAA crowd. "They have more individuality and more demands to be different from their preceding generations." He explains that the behavioral changes are creeping into every sociological barometer, whether it's delaying career choices or marrying later in life.

"The manager sometimes has to be a counselor or a mediator. You cannot get that type of attitude from a 20-page management agreement," Wilhelm explains. "It has to be something more and that's what makes a student housing project succeed."