A big question when you are sending your child off to college, or if you are a college student yourself is “Should I be living in an apartment instead of the dorms?”
There are a couple schools of thought on this. One that has been prevalent for a couple of generations now is that college students are going to be more studious and get more studies done in the dorm, as opposed to having their own place off-campus.
There is an idea that parents have that the RA at the dorms and the rules put in place by the University or College is going to help curtail any behavior parents may not want to admit or acknowledge is going on.
As virtually anyone who has had experience living in college dorms, whether it is large state school dorms, or private religious colleges when you concentrate that many people into a small area, there are going to be things happen that you may not want to see, deal with, or tolerate.
That is both from a student and a parental perspective. Parents don’t want it to happen, and at some points, the student themselves grow tired of it.
Especially at private religious schools, parents can have a naïve view of the situation, thinking their son or daughter is going to be more protected and sheltered from untoward things happening if they simply pay for them to be in the dorms.
This can be a great sentiment to think, but many times reality is far from the expectation.
While there can be some good benefits to living in the dorms, such as food meal plans and less responsibility for expenses and day to day upkeep, the benefits of an apartment are becoming more and more attractive to both parents and students.
The second school of thought simply comes down to cost. College costs a ton of money. As of 2019, even if you are going to an in-state public university, if you are staying in the dorms, you are going to be looking at around $10k per year. And that’s just for tuition.
If you are going to a private school or a university out of state, you are going to be looking at costs of over $30k-$40k a year or more.
All these costs take money, and whether that money is going to be paid upfront or in the form of a loan, it isn’t cheap. This means that any way both parents and students can save money on the entire college experience is going to be of benefit.
So, let’s look at some of the considerations when looking to stay in an apartment or a dorm.
Is It Cheaper To Rent An Apartment Or Live In A Dorm?
As crazy as it sounds, in most cases, it is going to be cheaper living in an apartment off-campus than living in the dorms.
While every college and university are different, students should expect that at least 1/3 of the entire cost of a year at school go to living in the dorms. This means that for in-state colleges, the cost of the dorms is going to be between $8-$9k on average, and between $10-12k for private or out of state schools.
When you consider that the student is only going to be actually in the dorms for at most, 9 months out of the year, that means that living in the dorms is going to cost $900-$1200 per month!
In most major American cities, you could get a pretty amazing apartment for that kind of money. Getting a roommate at those rates and you could get virtually any apartment in town you wanted!
Now, there are obviously exceptions to that rule, such as if you are going to school in downtown San Fransisco, in which case you are going to be spending thousands upon thousands of dollars for a rent-controlled unit. But for the sake of doing back-of-the-napkin calculations, it will hold true for the majority of college students.
Obviously, you are going to have to foot the bill for all of your other expenses, such as utilities, cable, and internet, but the nice thing is that you pay for what you use. In the dorms, you are paying one cost for everything, no matter how much or how little of it you use. When you are in an apartment, you are only paying for what you use. Don’t want cable TV, don’t pay for it. Want to save money on electricity and water? Live eco-friendly, shut the lights off, and take quick showers.
Even with the costs of utilities that you are going to have to pay separately, more than likely you are going to save money living off-campus as opposed to in the dorms.
Benefits To Living In An Apartment Off-Campus
Besides the costs, what are the other benefits you can have by living off-campus?
A major benefit of living in an apartment is that you can choose your roommate. In a dorm, most often the college is just going to randomly pair you with someone else with very few exceptions. The grievance has to be pretty strong for a university to change a person from a dorm.
Universities are notorious for not listening to these grievances as they are coming in from young students who are more than likely experiencing what it is like to live with someone else for the first time.
And while you can’t ever control or predict someone else’s behavior, at least with an apartment, you are able to do a bit of screening and due diligence on your potential roommate.
There are several sites now that allow people to apply to be a roommate and pairs them with people looking for a roommate, so you can sift through the types of people that would at least have the chance to be a good roommate. Sites like roommates.com and roomster.com are good examples of sites that provide this matching service.
There is something to be said for being able to control your own fate in these matters. Living with someone that you chose, even if that choice ended up being poor is much easier to swallow than coming home from work and class every day to someone you absolutely despise that you had no control over being with in the first place.
Additionally, putting things into place like a Roommate Agreement is also going to be a huge tool in setting the ground rules for the apartment you want.
Being in the real world means starting to take responsibility, and there is no better way to do this than by setting up rules for your own space that you and another person can come to an agreement on.
Privacy is another big reason students prefer apartments to the dorms. In a dorm, typically it is a very small studio setting just feet across in width and length that shares a common toilet, bathroom and shower facilities with the rest of the floor.
This means that everyone knows your business and is constantly in your private space. Many dorms also have an “Open Door Policy”, which are essentially rules that your dorm room must be kept unlocked at all times except when you are changing.
An apartment gives you your own space. You are always going to have those shared common areas, such as the living room and kitchen, that you are going to share with whoever else you choose to live with you. But you are also going to be able to have a much larger, and much more private space with your own bedroom.
Freedom to choose your own rules. As we mentioned before, setting up a Roommate Agreement(Link To Roommate Agreement) is an absolute must, especially for college students living on their own for the first time. It allows you to make sure that things get done and boundaries are set.
The great thing about an apartment is that you get to set the rules you want. You don’t have to live by the rules put down by the university. Need to go to bed or study, but people are loud and noisy in the dorms to all hours of the night? That problem probably won’t exist in an apartment, especially one with a Roommate Agreement in place.
You are not going to have to show up for mandatory weekly or monthly meetings with your RA, you are not going to have to deal with surprise inspections that feel more like your jail cell is being tossed than an inspection.
And you can control how noisy or quiet you would like your apartment to be. You get to choose the rules you live by, which is a great step to take as you are going out on your own.
Food. At the dorms, more than likely you are going to be on the meal plan of the college if you are staying on campus. This means that you are at the mercy of whatever the cafeteria decides to make when they decide to make it.
You are going to have precious little room to store food in your room, and more than likely only the ability to heat Ramen and popcorn in a communal microwave.
With an apartment, you are not going to be paying for a meal plan. While you are going to have to purchase your own food, you can determine what this is, how healthy it is, and how much of it you get every month.
It isn’t going to be a fixed cost that is there no matter how much you use it or not. You want to eat something? You can eat it.
Studies. Many parents erroneously believe that if their child is on campus, without transportation, they are going to be more apt to study. No matter how many generations go by, this proves not necessarily to be the case. In most cases, the student will be studious if they are studious, and their grades will suffer if they aren’t.
A physical location is not going to change this. But the cost of that physical location can and does put a current or future financial burden on that person.
In a dorm, you are seldom going to get the perfect quiet atmosphere. Even if you are a good student, there is always going to be social and peer pressure from your friends to come out and do something fun when really, you should be studying for that test.
On top of that, your roommate may not have the same focus for studying that you or your child does, and if they are constantly bringing people back to their small dorm room, that makes it difficult if not impossible to get studying done.
With an apartment, at any time, you can simply shut the door to your bedroom and be in your own little world. It also makes studying deliberate.
You have to get up and go to your classes every morning or afternoon by choice, not just roll out of your bunk after being up all night for the 4th night in a row a walk across the yard in your pajamas to make sure you make attendance again.
It puts a good type of responsibility on students to be deliberate about their actions, about their education, and about their future.
Can A College Student Rent an Apartment?
Part of the issue of actually getting an apartment if you are a college student is securing the rent and getting approved by the apartment complex. Landlords know that college students usually don’t make very much money and usually have a minimum standard for being willing to rent to anyone.
You may not have much credit or credit at all if you are a young college student, but if your background check comes back clean, having no credit may not prevent you from securing an apartment.
Let’s look at the ways you can get approved for an apartment if you are in college.
How To Get Approved For An Apartment In College
- Rent From A Smaller Complex
Smaller complex owners are more likely to be willing to rent to college kids. Especially if they have only a couple of units. Financially, they typically always need their units to be filled if humanly possible and are much more willing to work with college kids.
Additionally, by going to a smaller complex, you are going to be able to talk to the owner of the apartment directly. You can talk to the person face to face and explain what you are doing for school, what if anything you are doing for work, and why you would be a good renter for them. This is going to go a long way in helping you secure a lease.
- Get Someone To Co-sign
Getting a co-signer is something you are probably going to have to do if you are just starting out. This is what parents are for. Parents are a good option if you need someone to co-sign as they are going to have a higher chance of having a good credit history and rental background.
Having an older family member go on the lease with you gives the landlord the security and assurance they need to rent to someone for the first time with no rental history.
It is also going to financially secure them as well. Chances are if you are just starting college, your parents are probably going to be helping you with expenses. Just like they would help you with college, they can help, or at least guarantee that the landlord will get the full amount of their rent.
- Find A Roommate
The most promising option. Most college students find one if not multiple people that they can share the cost of an apartment with. And many times, the bigger apartment with more people living in that unit, the lower the cost-per-person can get.
If your friends are going to school at the same place you are, talk to them about possibly living with you off-campus. You can share expenses and maybe even transportation to class.
If you are going out of state or maybe just don’t know anyone who is attending your college, put an ad out online, at the university itself, or look at sites like roommate.com or roomster.com.
These places can all help you find someone that you want to live with and, if they are honest, can choose at least some of their characteristics.
Surprisingly, renting an apartment while going to college can be cheaper than living in the dorms. When you separate out the price per month that it costs to live in the dorms as opposed to living in an apartment off-campus, even when you factor in utilities and other expenses, you can save a great deal of money, and have a better experience in college.
