As someone who has attended a few colleges and universities- there are stairs flipping everywhere. Even outside.
Like they couldn’t level the campus grounds , no ? Stairs.

Stairs into buildings. Stairs inside the buildings. Stairs in the parking garages. Stairs outside on the grounds by any buildings.

Stairs stairs and more stairs.

I swear it was intended to wear out the students to keep them from having too much energy on their hands. Or maybe intended to keep students in shape. Idk.

I can only assume the show creators visited universities (especially older campuses) and tried to be authentic.