is this a good idea? College Student apartment

I'd say it's a very unusual circumstance to always be able to schedule the classes you need to end before noon. Freshman year perhaps, since they are usually taking surveys that have a lot of sections, but as the classes get more specific, many times there is only one section per semester, or even per year, and if you need it you have to take it whenever it happens to be offered. With so many college students having night-owl tendencies, it isn't uncommon for some departments to schedule no classes at all before 10 unless a waiting list develops, because early sections tend to get low enrollment.

IME of students, very few, and especially few males, have the patience and foresight to pack lunches to take to campus. In fact, many of them make an art form out of sliding into class less than 15 minutes after waking up. :tilt: Thank God for vending machines, I guess.
 
I'd say it's a very unusual circumstance to always be able to schedule the classes you need to end before noon. Freshman year perhaps, since they are usually taking surveys that have a lot of sections, but as the classes get more specific, many times there is only one section per semester, or even per year, and if you need it you have to take it whenever it happens to be offered. With so many college students having night-owl tendencies, it isn't uncommon for some departments to schedule no classes at all before 10 unless a waiting list develops, because early sections tend to get low enrollment.

IME of students, very few, and especially few males, have the patience and foresight to pack lunches to take to campus. In fact, many of them make an art form out of sliding into class less than 15 minutes after waking up. :tilt: Thank God for vending machines, I guess.

haha, DS18's priority is definitely not having a healthy breakfast before class every morning!

Thank you so much for your comments - they really gave us additional points to think and talk about!

I think he will be fine...we will share the costs with him as the apartment will be 1/2 ours, 1/2 his. We kicked around the idea of a roommate and neither we nor he really want to deal with the hassle of dealing with involving someone else. He will go out for his social life instead of it finding him at "home".

DS is flexible with his scheduling and his work hours are very flexible since they are open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, so he will be able to fit it all together. Like Pea-and-me said, his later years will be a lot of clinical work, so he will be off-campus and commuting for that anyway. If he ends up having a few hours between classes, he will just schedule study groups on those days, go to the school gym, or even come back home since it will only be a 15 min drive there and 15 min back. The new campus is in the middle of a medium-sized city and the college owns pretty much everything in the area, including parking decks, which are free for the students to use (with a windshield placard) as it is mainly a commuting school. The 3rd floor of the deck has an entrance to the "hamster tunnels" as the students call them, that link the garage to the school's first building...and if he plans his path right, he almost never has to go outside to get from one side of campus to the other. I fondly remember the days of doing that when I was there! lol
 
Subbing to this thread as I want to come back and read it over thoroughly. My twin DDs-20 are moving into house with 2 other girls, one of whom is the owner (her parents just bought it). We have some concerns. One being what we are paying. It seems as though 3 girls are paying all fees and owner's DD will stay free. Don't like that so we have to see. They havent given us a firm cost yet...also worries me. Another thing is 4 girls in a house...the safety aspect. We have all heard the horro stories.
 
haha, DS18's priority is definitely not having a healthy breakfast before class every morning!

Thank you so much for your comments - they really gave us additional points to think and talk about!

I think he will be fine...we will share the costs with him as the apartment will be 1/2 ours, 1/2 his. We kicked around the idea of a roommate and neither we nor he really want to deal with the hassle of dealing with involving someone else. He will go out for his social life instead of it finding him at "home".

DS is flexible with his scheduling and his work hours are very flexible since they are open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, so he will be able to fit it all together. Like Pea-and-me said, his later years will be a lot of clinical work, so he will be off-campus and commuting for that anyway. If he ends up having a few hours between classes, he will just schedule study groups on those days, go to the school gym, or even come back home since it will only be a 15 min drive there and 15 min back. The new campus is in the middle of a medium-sized city and the college owns pretty much everything in the area, including parking decks, which are free for the students to use (with a windshield placard) as it is mainly a commuting school. The 3rd floor of the deck has an entrance to the "hamster tunnels" as the students call them, that link the garage to the school's first building...and if he plans his path right, he almost never has to go outside to get from one side of campus to the other. I fondly remember the days of doing that when I was there! lol
It being a commuter school makes a difference. Schools like this understand that students can't hang around all day and may have to go to work and catch buses and trains, etc., so they try to be flexible about things and put other things into place like online capabilities for some classes to make it easier on people. Things have changed in colleges as they compete for students and understand that many have outside responsibilities like non-traditional students.
 


Subbing to this thread as I want to come back and read it over thoroughly. My twin DDs-20 are moving into house with 2 other girls, one of whom is the owner (her parents just bought it). We have some concerns. One being what we are paying. It seems as though 3 girls are paying all fees and owner's DD will stay free. Don't like that so we have to see. They havent given us a firm cost yet...also worries me. Another thing is 4 girls in a house...the safety aspect. We have all heard the horro stories.

My dd has been in 3 different house situations so far. One with a bunch of guys, one with just one other girl and one with 4 girls. You can't predict how they are going to turn out, each one had odd things going on, but my dd came out much better at dealing with people and life as a result.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'fees' in a housing situation, but I actually considered buying something for my dd while she was in school (still might, she just entered a potentially long grad program). I would have expected the other girls to pay rent to me, but it wouldn't make sense for me to write myself a rent check. That said - the owner needs to charge the other girls market rent. If they charge more - why move there. If less - they may have some tax problems. Perhaps they believe that the rent will be below market, so the other girls could pay utilities and cable as a result. The bottom line is to know what similar situations would cost at their school, and not be willing to pay more than that.
 
Subbing to this thread as I want to come back and read it over thoroughly. My twin DDs-20 are moving into house with 2 other girls, one of whom is the owner (her parents just bought it). We have some concerns. One being what we are paying. It seems as though 3 girls are paying all fees and owner's DD will stay free. Don't like that so we have to see. They havent given us a firm cost yet...also worries me. Another thing is 4 girls in a house...the safety aspect. We have all heard the horror stories.

Two points in this one:

1) Girl who is the landlord's child living rent-free while the roommates cover the mortgage. I don't really see why this is an issue, because (assuming that you are not signing individual leases with her parents) her parents are taking on the risk; they paid the down payment, they will get left holding the bag if a roommate fails to pay rent, and they are presumably on the hook for all of the maintenance costs of the house. Of course, in this particular case, the rent should be going at fair market value; your DD should not be paying the cost of a master bedroom with its own bath if what she is getting is a small child's bedroom with a shared bathroom. Look at what comparable 4/4 properties cost to rent in the area. (In most places you can pay a mortgage for less than comparable rent costs, but that should not include recovering the down-payment. THAT they will get back when the home is eventually sold, presuming that they don't trash it to the point where it doesn't appreciate.) In this situation I think that the landlord should include the utilities in the rent, with an amount a tad higher than the documented past average; it makes more sense for them to just collect a single amount, since there are no separate meters for the utilities in a conventional single-family home, and this way the amount is set every month. (There should be a clause in the rental agreement allowing them to raise the utility surcharge if the actual bills reflect more use than expected.)

2) Safety. I lived with 3 roommates in a house all through college. Our security nightmare was one roommate who was always leaving the back door open (yes, WIDE open) so that her large dog could come and go from the back yard. Sure enough, some guy hopped the fence and walked into the house one day, although the dog did have him up against a wall in seconds. Luckily, he wasn't carrying a firearm. I would say that a written agreement with the landlord (her parents) should prohibit leaving the home unlocked in any way, and if it does happen, the one responsible gets kicked out, or the other roommates can choose to leave with no penalty. There should also be rules about overnight guests, not to play nanny, but if you have a girl who brings home people she doesn't really know, that is dangerous to her roommates. The bedroom doors should be solid-core and fitted with inside-flip deadbolts, so that they can be locked when the occupant is not home -- that's a security upgrade that you should demand.

I doubt you would be able to get an enforceable individual lease in a house-sharing situation, but a formally-worded and signed agreement between the landlord (her parents) and each of the rent-paying tenants should help impress their responsibilities and reduce the drama somewhat.
 
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Another thing is 4 girls in a house...the safety aspect.

i would be more concerned with the potential for drama.

dd lived in a shared situation w/a number of other people and the one thing i was always worried about was the rent amount. seemed like every month or so someone got their nose out of joint or wanted to move in w/their current s.o. so there went a roommate and their share of the rent. luckily they had a large pool of friends who were on kind of a 'wait list' to move in if a room came available but if that's not the case and the informal agreement is 'housing is x-each of the non owner girls pays an even split' if one or two leave that leaves the remainder w/much higher rent.

i would get a dollar number in writing FROM THE OWNER that also spells out how utilities are paid (dd had a couple of roommates who always flaked on paying their share such they got shut off notices-the reason i told her to NEVER put any of the utilities in her name). your dd should also get renter's insurance b/c if she's paying anything to live there the homeowner's insurance wont cover her.
 


2. Dorms are EXPENSIVE! We can have him move into an apartment for a fraction of the cost.
Doubtful if you look at the whole cost:

Right now my daughter is in a dorm. It costs $2,392.50/semester, and her meal plan is $1,035/semester. Her total room and board is $6,855/year. Predictable, all-in-one cost. Furniture, utilities, housekeeping for the public areas included. She's happy, and she wanted to stay in her same dorm next year ... but she didn't make lottery, so we've been searching high and low for an apartment.

She and her roommate have found a two-bedroom apartment they like for $950/month (divided by two, of course); it's not a ghetto, but it's also not fancy -- it's a throwback to the 70s with two bedrooms /one bath /no washer and dryer in the unit. Most of the apartments in her college town run $1,100-1,200/month, and they seem to top out around $1,400/month. Anyway, you have to look at the numbers beyond the rent:

- When you rent an apartment, you're probably going to be forced to take a 12-month lease ... so my daughter will pay $5,700/year ... whereas the dorm would've been $4,785. Even if the OP's son intends to go home for the summer, he has to pay for the apartment year round.

- We are fairly concerned about taking on a 12-month lease because my daughter and her roommate will both be seniors next year. In their last semester, my daughter will be doing Fieldwork, and the roommate will be doing student teaching. Where will they be assigned? They're allowed to express a preference, but they may be assigned somewhere inconvenient for the apartment. Regardless of where they're assigned, they're committed to the apartment. Yes, hopefully they could sub-let, if things don't go their way, but they have no guarantee that would happen ... and sub-letters tend to pay less than the total rent. As I said, we're concerned ... but, having lost in the lottery, we're stuck.

- It's not just the rent: As I said, my daughter's in the middle of this right now. We had to pay a non-refundable $90 application fee and a $475 security fee, which the apartment will hold as long as they live in the complex. The roommate had to pay the $90 application fee as well, but I covered the security fee for them both (with the understanding that I get it back when they move out).

- Here's one you probably haven't considered, but we're in the midst of this problem right now: I expected to co-sign for my daughter; she has no credit. With me as co-signer, my daughter qualified for the apartment -- no problem. The roommate's parents, however, did not qualify. She's trying to find someone else to co-sign for her, but she may or may not manage to do this. If she fails, she's out the $90 application fee, and my daughter is committed to an apartment ... with the whole bill.

- The son may not be able to move in when he wishes. My daughter and her roommate need to move in mid-August just before classes start; however, the apartment complex says the apartment will be open mid-July. Their choice: Start paying rent mid-July, or go somewhere else.

- In addition to the rent, you'll have to pay utilities. Electricity, water, internet, possibly cable ... they'll add up. The apartment complex gave us a flyer with phone numbers for setting up utilities, and it states that the water department will not give college students service without a $200/security deposit, which they will keep for one year.

- You'll have to furnish the apartment. At first glance, you might say, "No problem! We were going to buy a new sofa anyway -- he can take the old one, his aunt will give him an old bed, and we'll pick up an old table at Goodwill." Yes, those are the big things, and you don't mind if he has old stuff ... but my daughter and I were just out picking up a few things for her apartment, and there's going to be more than you expect. We decided to go ahead and outfit her bathroom: She has towels, which we purchased for her dorm ... but she needed a shower curtain, liner, hooks, two small bath mats, a plunger, and soap dish -- it totaled to just over $60. Consider pots and pans, dishes and silverware, kitchen linens, lamps, a microwave, a vacuum cleaner ... even with cast-offs from family and/or thrift store purchases, it will add up. And you have to move it all.

- If you're looking at a roommate (and most college students are), you risk whether the roommate will pay his or her part of the rent and utilities.

- A couple people mentioned the time spent commuting /being distanced from campus activities. Consider, too, that when you drive to campus, you'll have to have a parking permit (which my daughter does not have now). At my daughter's school, these are about $600/year.

- This isn't a financial cost, but consider that your college student isn't doing any bathroom cleaning or cooking any meals in the dorms. Also, he isn't buying toilet paper, napkins, and other house hold goods. Consider the time /effort that goes into these things.

- Things look better when you look at the cost of food. As I said, I'm paying $1,035/semester for my daughter's meals. With 14 week semesters, this is about $73/week for food. Yes, she can cook meals for less ... or she can go through drive-throughs a couple times a week and spend more. But, yes, it's quite possible to save here.

Even if everything with this apartment goes perfectly, I am 100% certain we are going to pay more than $6,855 for her senior year housing.
 
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MrsPete, I take it there are no student-centric complex apartments near her campus? Those are usually rented partially-furnished (or can rent furniture to you), and each resident has a separate lease. Some of those companies do allow 9 month leases.

This won't help you because it is senior year, but we were able to get an odd-length lease for DS' apartment this year because we signed for MORE than 12 months. (He had to move in the middle of the semester due to weather-related structural damage to his building.) We signed a lease for 19 months, to get him through graduation and another month afterward, while he attempts to find a job nearby. (It also puts the vacancy at the beginning of August, at which time of year it is likely to be snapped up very quickly.)
 
Talk about cost differences, ds20’s room and board in his 50+ year old dorm with hall bathrooms and no a/c was over $14,000 a year, same with dd22. They reduced it by half living off campus and paying $500 a month rent, 12 months out of the year.
 
Another case where not all situations are the same and what is best for one family is not the gospel for others.

I am sure posters on here are savvy enough to determine if dorm life or apartment life will be better financially, emotionally, and time wise for their student.

2 of my kids moved to apartments after being required to live in dorms the first year. Other son moved after year two because he had a scholarship requiring him to live on campus first 2 years.

There are not enough dorms for those beyond year 2 to live on campus even if they wanted.

And yes we weigh the financials, it was definitely cheaper to live off campus than in the dorms. Buying a couple hundred dollars worth of cheap household items that they'll take with them until they have their permanent jobs did not cost that much. And with roommates each kid brings in their own stuff so they're not furnishing a complete apartment.

It's cheaper and healthier for my kids to buy meals for their apartment without a campus meal plan.

My deceased grandmother's corelle dishes and silverware will get 2 through doctorate programs for no cost.
 
It’s always interesting to read these threads and it just goes to show that you really have to do the math for your area as things vary widely by area/region. DS20, a rising junior, was hoping to move into an apartment next year. When all costs were factored in, it wasn’t any cheaper and it was definitely more stressful. In the end, he’s hoping to go abroad second semester and we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of subletting, so he’s staying in the dorms until senior year. I am relieved. He is also at a University which wins numerous awards for their food. Knowing him, it’s definitely a healthier alternative to be eating most meals on campus.

On the other hand, when I was in college many years ago, it was a significant savings to move off campus so I only stayed in the dorms my freshman year. The food was also pretty bad, so we wound up eating a ton of meals off campus. Much cheaper to cook meals in a kitchen.
 
Well, I do think an apartment is cheaper per month when you figure the room and board fees for college is for 8 months of stay. So my DDs' friend's father is going to charge us @$600 each kid (I think, have heard $550, $600 and $650). $600 for 8 months is $4800. Probably will give them like $600 a month (for both) for food. So $2400 per girl for 8 months. $7200. Room and Board is about $12K per kid. Crazy. Now we do have to pay a full year (well I don't think we do since it's the friend's house but we likely will do May 2019-Jan 2021 as they graduate a semester early). But I don't count those months where they'd be home if staying on campus. But if I did....7200+2400+1200= 10,800 is still less than R&B.
 
It’s interesting to hear people refer to a 15min drive as a commute. That’s a run up to the grocery store here. My DD would kill for 15mins each way. As it is it’s 30-40mins depending on time of day. The price of living at home I guess. Even if she lived out that way she’d have a similar commute for everything else.

She does try to schedule her classes in clusters within the same time frame and her boss tries to schedule her so that she can leave from one to the other without too much of a gap. She did have a semester where there was a two hour gap but so did her classmates. They’d go to the library to study or work on a project, have lunch on campus or go to the gym. She didn’t love it but she didn’t hate it.

OP, I think if it works for your son then go for it.
 
It’s interesting to hear people refer to a 15min drive as a commute. That’s a run up to the grocery store here. My DD would kill for 15mins each way. As it is it’s 30-40mins depending on time of day. The price of living at home I guess. Even if she lived out that way she’d have a similar commute for everything else.

She does try to schedule her classes in clusters within the same time frame and her boss tries to schedule her so that she can leave from one to the other without too much of a gap. She did have a semester where there was a two hour gap but so did her classmates. They’d go to the library to study or work on a project, have lunch on campus or go to the gym. She didn’t love it but she didn’t hate it.

OP, I think if it works for your son then go for it.
Lol my drive to the grocery store is under 2 minutes, the one across town is 5. Both of my SIL’s attended college 4 miles away, one stayed at home and the other got an apartment by the school with friends.
 
Lol my drive to the grocery store is under 2 minutes, the one across town is 5. Both of my SIL’s attended college 4 miles away, one stayed at home and the other got an apartment by the school with friends.
Several years ago we were visiting my DH’s grandma in a tiny MN town. She kept apologizing for “the traffic.” For us it was nothing, it was like exiting our neighborhood. I think it’s all what you’re used to. The OP says her son is used to the area so I would think 15mins would be no big thing.
 
A former co-worker's son was studying Pharmacy, so he had an 8 year program at the same college. First 2 years he lived in the dorm as required, last 6 they bought a house and rented out the two extra bedrooms. Son has since graduated, dad says he made enough money on the rent and appreciation on the house to pay for his son't food, and made a small profit
 
Our daughter moved into an apartment sophomore year with 3 friends because her college didn't have boarding room for upperclassman. The apartment she rented was specific for college students, so each of roommates had their own locking bedroom door and separate leases. There was a front desk and security doors. It was great!

DD22 graduated last May. She only dormed for freshman year and moved to the type of apartment FlightlessDuck described. It is the social norm for every kid I know to move off campus after that first year. I had no worries about it. She had roommates and her apartment Sophomore and Junior year was closer to the central part of her campus than her Freshman dorm. She still walked to classes and all the nearby coffee shops and such.

In my experience, you will have to cosign the lease. Every apartment she looked at required a cosigner if you don't have income 4 times the rent and credit that they could check. DD had neither. We paid all college costs and I felt better paying that kind of money for a spacious apartment over the ridiculous cost of the tiny dorm.

My only concern in your scenario would be the commute. As I said above, my only advice to DD was to stay close. She could come and go, easily meet for study groups, go back for labs and projects in the studios, walk to the stadium for game days, walk to her sorority house- just basically stay very connected to campus life. She really only used her car most week days to drive the 10-15 minutes to her part time job.

Senior year she and her girl friends decided to move to a town home that was a bit farther from campus. On the campus shuttle route but not walkable. By then though, her social groups were well established and she was on the home stretch so being right on campus was less appealing to her than having some green space.
 
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MrsPete, I take it there are no student-centric complex apartments near her campus? Those are usually rented partially-furnished (or can rent furniture to you), and each resident has a separate lease. Some of those companies do allow 9 month leases.
Oh, they exist -- my girls attend school in one of those great towns where the university and the town blend together, and everything revolves around students -- but those "student-centric" apartments are the ones at the top of the cost spectrum. Even if I had been willing to pay $700/month in rent alone (for just my girl's share), those places were already full by the time my daughter realized she didn't make lottery.

No, after a very extensive search, we didn't encounter a single place that offered anything except a 12-month lease. They were all very "screw you" on that topic; in fact, as I said above, we are required to start paying rent a month earlier than my daughter needs the apartment. If we were looking in the spring semester, we might have luck with sub-letting.

Yes, some of those at the top of the price list do come furnished. One place we spoke to offered a furnished option, but it cost $35/roommate/month -- that's crazy expensive. That same place wanted another $50/month for a parking space (in their defense, it was underground /covered parking, and my girls go to school in a snowy location.
I am sure posters on here are savvy enough to determine if dorm life or apartment life will be better financially, emotionally, and time wise for their student.
I don't know that all college parents consider all the extras that come along with a college apartment. For example, I never considered that the roommate wouldn't be able to get a co-signer.
It’s always interesting to read these threads and it just goes to show that you really have to do the math for your area as things vary widely by area/region
Yep, that was my main point: Do the math. Do the whole math (okay, that was poorly worded, but you know what I mean).

As for the "your area" part, it's absolutely true that prices vary widely across the US ... but I assume that where dorms are high, apartments are also high. And vice-versa.
Buying a couple hundred dollars worth of cheap household items that they'll take with them until they have their permanent jobs did not cost that much. And with roommates each kid brings in their own stuff so they're not furnishing a complete apartment.
See, this is what I'm talking about.

In the month since we learned we would be leasing an apartment, we've already jumped on furnishing her apartment ... and we're already halfway to "a couple hundred". We're giving her an old sofa out of our house, and my mother gave her a ratty old table she had in her storage building ... but we spent $40 on sandpaper and turquoise paint for the table ... we bought bathroom stuff yesterday that was over $50 ... she needs a bed; I've "put the word out", but no one seems to be getting rid of one. She has a decent amount of kitchen goods, but she has no glasses, no sharp knives, and no kitchen linens. We'll be going to Goodwill frequently this summer, and we're not looking for too much since she'll only be in the place a year ... but we'll need to rent something to get the furniture to her apartment (we'll probably donate it to the local Goodwill instead of bringing it home). No, a couple hundred will not furnish the place.

Yes, typically a roommate would bring stuff, but my daughter's roommate -- while wonderfully suited to her in temperament -- doesn't have much in the way of family resources, and I'm willing to take on the lion's share of the furnishing for her sake.
It’s interesting to hear people refer to a 15min drive as a commute.
Eh, kinda. 15 minutes for an adult's commute is nothing, but 15 minutes for a college student is a different ball game. Adults tend to go to work and stay all day. A college student may have two classes in the morning, then need to return for an evening class or social event. That's what makes living on campus so convenient.
A former co-worker's son was studying Pharmacy, so he had an 8 year program at the same college. First 2 years he lived in the dorm as required, last 6 they bought a house and rented out the two extra bedrooms. Son has since graduated, dad says he made enough money on the rent and appreciation on the house to pay for his son't food, and made a small profit
If I'd realized my kids would all attend the same college, I might have considered purchasing a condo in their college town -- but it is (for our state) a pretty expensive area.
 
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Eh, kinda. 15 minutes for an adult's commute is nothing, but 15 minutes for a college student is a different ball game. Adults tend to go to work and stay all day. A college student may have two classes in the morning, then need to return for an evening class or social event. That's what makes living on campus so convenient.
If I'd realized my kids would all attend the same college, I might have considered purchasing a condo in their college town -- but it is (for our state) a pretty expensive area.
It’s 15 minutes, lol. Presumably a kid in college has already had a busy back and forth life the last couple of years of high school with school, after school activities and events, study groups, work etc. Maybe it’s because I live in a big city and have been watching my DD and her friends have commutes that are significantly longer but I just can’t wrap my head around 15 minutes being a big deal.
 

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