College Students Living Off Campus
Don’t want to be tied down to the on-campus lifestyle? I don’t blame you. Living off-campus allows for so much more freedom. Although, way more responsibilities will fall upon your shoulders, you’re going to love all the freedom that living off campus will bring to your life.
Let Freedom Reign
Are you jumping into the unknown here? Entering your adulthood, the moment you graduate from high school you set yourself in a motion upon life’s path which is to graduate college, move out on your own, get a stable job, get married, and possibly become a parent. Not all paths follow these laid out points, some are scrambled to the point that everyone’s life follows a different path.
Research has shown that millennials are changing the shape of our future. Marriage rates are down; they are putting off having children until a later age and finding creative ways to keep the long-term costs of college debt down to the bare minimal.
One thing you may want to consider when you live off-campus is your class schedule. Depending upon your commute, you may want to take online classes when available or set up your campus class schedule so that you are there only 2 days or 3 days out of the week.
Personally, I lived 30 minutes away from my university campus. I had to commute because I was married and had children. I made sure that I made the most efficient use of my time by enrolling in classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unless I had a lab, then I went with a three-day week; Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I didn’t set myself up to have to drive 5 days a week, not to mention that I had to plan for childcare.
Unfortunately, I didn’t live with my parents, nor did I have a built-in babysitter; I had to pay for childcare. Fortunately, I did not have to work and could be a stay at home mom and study on my off time. I was able to make a budget and stick to it. This meant cooking my own meals, exercising at home, minimal socializing and staying at home when money was tight. It’s what I had to do to make college happen for myself.
Wherever you choose to live is a personal choice. Make sure you make the best choice for you and be confident in your decision.
Location
When deciding on where to live, your location should be at the forefront of your mind. You’ll want to make sure that you are close to your college campus for your job along with other amenities such as gas and grocery shopping.
A day or two before classes start, drive from your housing location to your college campus, park and walk to your first class. Upon doing this, you’ll know just how much time you’ll need to get to and from where you live and your job, should you have one. You’ll also want to allow extra time for any unforeseen traffic issues and every town or city has them.
Here is a list of other locations that you may want to consider:
- Gas stations
- Grocery stores
- Doctor or Urgent Care
- Jobs – On or Off Campus
- Your parents’ house
Types of Off-Campus Housing
- Living with Parents/Family
- Living with a Roommate
- Renting a Room
- Renting an Apartment
- Rent-For-Services
At the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, 82% of college students live off-campus.
At the University of Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, 74% of college students live off-campus.
Living with Parents/Family
Why move out? You would think that living at home with parents or family would be a normal thing for a lot of students. However, according to a survey with over 1,000 millennials (born between 1981 and 1997) only 31% of college students live with their family. But, out of that low statistic, only 9.6% of those are extremely satisfied with this living arrangement. Although, this number has increased by 19% over the last 20 years.
Advantages to living at home:
- You will have your continual support system. The same one you’ve had all through your younger years.
- You don’t have to share a room, unless you must share with a sibling.
- You don’t have to move or purchase household items.
- You will have a quieter place to study.
- You get to remain in your comfort zone.
- If you are budget conscious when you graduate you may be able to purchase your own home.
Costs
It’s all about cost savings and cutting costs! Saving money is the cardinal solution to being debt free upon graduating college. Families are choosing to cut costs on college expenses by students living at home with parents, stepparents, or other family members. You can save up to nearly $30,000 by living at home. Living at home also allows for parents to still claim you as a deduction on their tax return.
Costs of living at home are bare minimal. Most students living at home don’t have to pay for anything other than maybe their own gas and socializing. Woefully, 1 out of 4 students living at home are more than likely helping their parents make ends meet by working to pay a portion of the household bills. Some of them are even paying rent on their room and buying their own groceries.
Living with a Roommate
Should you live with a roommate? That’s a good question. First, I’d advise you to make sure you can afford living on your own. Can you make ends meet without the financial help of a roommate? Why do I ask, because if your roommate doesn’t work out then you are stuck paying all the expenses?
Living with a roommate will allow:
- A larger place to live.
- Paying a portion of the bills. You may even find that you can have more than just one roommate and thus your part of the expenses will be even less.
- Having someone around like your BFF.
- Having a friend as a support system.
Follow the golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Having a roommate comes with challenges. Do set boundaries, be clear about expectations upon moving in. Do address the little things so that they don’t build into larger things like creating arguments and unwanted stress. Do be courteous to everyone’s needs. Don’t snoop, trust is hard to rebuild once you’ve broken it. Don’t borrow items without permission. Don’t invite people like booty calls over without asking, especially new people that you don’t know very well.
Make a silver rule; if you make a mess, clean it up. Make a weekly chart of chores. Yes, it sounds childish, but you may be surprised as to who says, ‘that’s not my job.’ Do be that roommate that does your chores and expects others to do theirs.
Have a set date and time that everyone pays their share of the bills. Invest in a notebook and receipt book. Give everyone a copy of the list of bills and how much they are. That way there are no surprises for how much they must pay.
Renting an Apartment
I’m appalled the apartment manager wanted to do a background check on me. Yes, this is a common rule when renting an apartment. They want to know who they are renting to and can you pay the bills. Also, don’t be surprised if there are some apartments that frown upon and will not rent to college students.
With a high demand for rental property, you may not find one the first day you go out looking. Start looking a couple of months early because you may have to be placed on a waiting list. College towns and larger cities should have an abundant rental capacity. Your small towns are the places that you may have to be placed on that waiting list.
Apartments come with one, two or three bedrooms. Depending on the size there may even be two bathrooms. I’d gather up several roommates beforehand that way you’ll know what size you are going to be needing. You can always add to your roommate number if space allows.
Your apartment will come with a rental agreement. Make sure you and your roommates read it and understand the rules and regulations. You don’t want to be evicted because of your own negligence.
Paying rent on time is the biggest issue most apartment managers have. I’d make sure that I knew my roommates well, so that you can count on them to pay they’re portion of the rent. Also, that way you will know how much you’re going to be expected to pay each month. Apartment managers love it when parents back their college students up financially. According to CNBC, 23% of parents pay for their college student’s financial obligations. I hope you are one of those lucky students.
Based on previous tenants that may have or may not have taken care of the apartment, don’t set your expectations very high when it comes to luxury. Most apartments are older, and chances are they haven’t been well taken care of.
Do take advantage of having a kitchen. This is one of the easiest and friendliest ways to stick to your budget by keeping your food expenses low. Cooking your own food is also healthy, you know what you are putting into your food and into your body.
Costs
A rule of thumb, the deposit for an apartment is the sum of the first and last months’ rent. When you get ready to move out of the apartment, you must have maintained the apartment immaculately in order to get your deposit back. Then, once your apartment has been inspected the deposit should be refunded to you.
You will also have to put deposits down on the utilities. Utilities will vary from apartment complex to apartment complex. You can count on having monthly water and electricity bills for sure, but some may use gas as well. Ask when you are checking out the apartments so that there are no unexpected surprises.
You can expect the average rent for an apartment in Texas to be roughly around $715 per month. The utilities will run on average about $105 per month, this doesn’t include internet or cable. You can expect the costs to be the same in Houston, Dallas and Austin.
Based on these costs, you are going to want to find a semi-permanent residence. You don’t want to have to continuously pay deposits, that will get expensive. Find an apartment that you like the live in it until you are ready to make a new move.
Renting a Room
Can’t afford to live on your own or in an apartment? There are a lot of college students that can’t make ends meet. Nor can they even get a lease to rent an apartment. One solution to consider is renting a room. A room can come in the form of renting a room for someone who is renting an apartment, a house or someone who owns a house that is renting out a single bedroom or basement room.
Even though you are just renting a room, you will still have rules and guidelines to follow. If you rent a room from another college student who happens to have the lease to the apartment, then make sure you clarify the rental agreement rules and overall roommate expectations.
If you are lucky enough to find a basement room, you will need to follow your rental agreement. A basement room is a room in a house that’s located on the bottom level and should have its own entrance. This is probably the best room to rent as it will have the feeling of living alone, but the costs should still be the same as renting a room from a classmate who has an apartment. You will probably have shared laundry facilities, but the rest should be like living on your own. You may even get to decorate it the way you want, unless it already comes completely furnished.
How should you go about looking for a room to rent?
- Look through the advertisements in your local newspaper.
- Put up a flyer on your college campus where you can do so.
- Post of social media.
- Post of college boards.
- Talk to your classmates.
- Talk to your study groups
- Talk to your college club members
- Talk to your academic advisor
Costs
The average cost of renting a room is roughly about $300-400 a month. This is not nearly as expensive as renting an apartment. The utilities will also be included in the cost. You may have to purchase your own internet and cable considering that these are not utilities.
Rent-For-Services
Rent-for-Services is a volunteer type of service. You volunteer your time in exchange for a free place to live. While being a resident adviser is not a new concept, being a live-in resident is. Not only are you helping yourself, you are helping others as well. That’s a feeling that everyone can glorify in.
Resident Advisors
Upperclassmen are offering up their services as Resident Advisers. They volunteer their time to manage the dorm and underclassmen for free room and board. The sound of being a RA may not be so absurd to college students anymore. After all, they have lived in the dorms for at least two previous years and know the ins and outs. Why give free advice when you can exchange it for a place to live rent free. While volunteering as a RA does require you to live on-campus, it warrants a free mention here as well as a consideration.
Live-In Lifesavers
Consider this! Families are always looking for inexpensive ways to find help for an elderly or disabled family member. A lot of times, families can’t afford to quit their jobs and take care of their elderly. And on the flip side, these elderly or disabled people can’t afford to move into a retirement or nursing home. Find an elderly person that lives alone and offer to be a live-in resident to help them out. You probably know a family that has this need, you just haven’t given it this creative thought. A local church or a community kitchen may also be able to recommend families that have this need.
Most of the time, these elderly people are still able to care for themselves. However, they may not be able to do physical work like taking care of their yard, cooking every meal, remembering daily tasks or driving themselves to and from places. As a young person, you are quite capable of going grocery shopping, running errands and other things that you take for granted.
Not only would be you a lifesaver, you may just find that you need the wisdom, company and support of an elder.
Live-In resident for the Elderly
Cheers to the new rage of Renting-For-Services! The new rage is to live in a retirement or nursing home. Students exchange free room and board for 30 hours of volunteer time spent with our nation’s elders. Residents young and old are loving this new trend. One student said that they’d rather play cards with the resident in room 300 than pay thousands of dollars of every year for housing while in college.
Alas, a huge number of residents living in nursing homes have been long forgotten by their actual family members. Therefore, everyone involved with this new rage is loving the concept as well as the outcome. The college students bring a youthful energy to the elders along with a powerful feeling of family. Negative effects of being forgotten have now been turned into positive effects with a social lifestyle. It’s been proven that we live longer when we socialize.
Giving credit where credit is due, kudos to the Dutch college students who have started this trend. College students are saving money and saving sanity. It’s catching on globally and spreading into areas like France and Spain.
Students are concerned about their current living arrangements, their annual salaries, and how much they accumulate in student debt, other debt, and savings. Striking out on your own, no matter where you are at in your life’s path, there are things you need to know; arm yourself with as much information as you can.