Everyone's partly right about this. His name WILL have to be on the lease, but if it is your credit rating that will need to be used for the background check because he doesn't have credit of his own, then he will officially have to be a co-tenant with one of his parents. We have had this arrangement for my DS for two years now. The area where he goes to school is expensive, but it's urban, and he can do without a car, which is a significant cost savings. You will have to pick ONE of the parents to be the official co-tenant; the leasing company will balk at trying to split it three ways. (IME, *one* non-tenant who also happens to be the party responsible for the rent is not an impossible thing at all if that person is significantly older and has good credit, but you need to tell the leasing agent up-front that it is what you want to do. It's different than their usual arrangement, and they usually will want to run it by Legal.)
Here is the part of your post that I have doubts about (not your sister, but the rest):
IME, students who commute this way lose a lot of study time in the driving, and don't feel attached to any one area, let alone the area around campus. I know he isn't, and you don't want, a party animal, but being so far away tends to limit how easy it is for them to build friendships, and to participate in things like study groups. I guess that IMO, a lot depends on whether or not he will plan to stay in the area after graduating, and it also depends on what sort of apartment situation it is. If it is one of those soul-less large complexes where there are lots of transient tenants, that's one commuting situation, but in a case like that of my DS, he really loves his school AND the neighborhood, and does not want to leave the area after graduation. He's in a 10-unit complex where he is the youngest tenant; lots of his neighbors are older folks, and he helps them out quite a bit. He's going to need our help with his rent for a while yet while he gets his feet under him and pays off his small loans, but he's pretty much in that area for good if he possibly can be; he has put down roots in 3 years.
PS: The apartments people mentioned with separate roommate leases are built specifically for the student market. The vast majority of them are owned by big players in the industry, this article explains and lists most of them: http://www.dinersteincos.com/wp-con...tudent-Housing-MARAPR-2017_selected-pages.pdf
Different states and different management companies handle it differently, but there’s a difference between a co-tenant as you’ve described and a co-signer/underwriter for the lease. A co-signer is going to be financially responsible if the tenant does not pay their rent or for damages but has less rights/responsibilities for the rental. A co-tenant (if truly a co-tenant) will have the same rights as if they live there and can incur additional rental charges.
I worked in the management office of two different college apartment complexes and we would often have 2 parent co-signers for each tenant and wouldn’t have any issue adding additional co-signers. We would not have added additional tenants that weren’t true tenants and if an apartment had an occupancy if 2 that would be a problem to split it.
Again states have different tenant laws and management companies also differ so son should check out the lease to determine how it needs to be assigned.