Joseph Mallord William Turner. View of Venice: The Ducal Palace, Dogana and Part of San Giorgio, 1841.

Unlike one local university, Oberlin has never had maid service and isn't soon expecting a campus Whole Foods. It has something better: The chance to rent works by blue-chip artists in the university collection for their dorm rooms. Oberlin students line up at the crack of dawn for a chance at their first choice of 400 masterpieces by artists including Picasso, Lichtenstein and Pollock, for which they pay only a $5 rental fee.

While Oberlin's museum is closed for renovations this year, they’re loaning work to the Phillips Collection for the show “Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Phillips.” So what works of art will Oberlin students be deprived of this semester? None: Melissa Duffes of Oberlin’s Allen Memorial Art Museum says that the works loaned to the Phillips and the works in the art rental program come from different collections. The prints, paintings, photos and sculptures were set aside for students by Oberlin art professor Ellen Johnson, who thought that living with art would develop their “aesthetic sensibilities.”

When the Phillips’ show opens on Sept. 11, visitors will see 25 works from Oberlin grouped with works in the Phillips’ permanent collection, ranging from the 16th century to the 20th. Some of the works on loan from Oberlin are by Rubens, Cezanne, and Turner. Meanwhile, students of my beloved alma mater will bravely soldier on without their maid service, the Van Gogh Starry Night posters on their walls gathering dust.