Dorms without air-conditioning are common even at the most selective colleges. But as summers get longer and hotter, many see AC less as a luxury than a necessity. As residents of the small burg of Wayne, Neb., slogged through a four-day heat advisory late last month, most of the students at Wayne State College stayed cool in their air-conditioned dorms. But it was a different story for the roughly 33 percent who live in the two dorms on campus without AC—which also lack the electrical infrastructure for window units or other portable air conditioners. Those students survived by cooling their rooms with fans and ice and even sleeping in air-conditioned common rooms alongside dozens of other residents.