The reason I operated a Wi-Fi network was to both gain faster speeds (the Ethernet ports provided a 1G connection - not kidding - while the Wi-Fi was stuck with Wireless-N) and to allow me to connect to my own printer wirelessly (plugging in a USB cable every time I had to print something was super annoying).

A point that I haven't seen anyone touch on yet is the issues arising from having a double NAT situation when someone plugs in their own router. This goes beyond just using WiFi, but depending on how your are setting up your own network, and how the network security is handled by the university, you could be bypassing certain security measures by running your own network.

My setup wasn't double-NAT, the WAN IP given to my router wasn't a 192.168.*.* address. It was perfectly fine and I could even run my own server through it (there was no clause against doing so in any agreements I signed).