is this a good idea? College Student apartment

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.
 
My son's college required undergraduates to live in a dorm. He lived in an on campus apartment his Junior and Senior years, and had to go a 5th year, and lived in an on off campus apartment.
Make sure you know what rents , food, and transportation to campus will cost. The dorms at my son's University were cheaper than off campus apartments. And since he graduated, they have added several dorms because students can't afford the off campus rents. So just depends on the dorm cost and rental market.
 
Perfect sense!

Isn't part of going to college about transitioning to adulthood? Unless she lives in a very business-heavy geographical are, or works from home, she is going to have to commute, no?
Going to college should be fun! You spend the rest of your lives commuting! He will be new on campus, not know anyone, commuting isn’t going to help. Study groups, parties, hanging out, clubs, downtime in between classes...
 


He certainly sounds able. Our granddaughter graduated from University of Illinois last year. She lived in a double room freshmen year, then got a single dorm room sophomore year and moved into an apartment junior year. We paid for her tuition and living expenses and frankly I didnt find the apartment with food and utilities to be any cheaper than the dorm and meal plan. She did live in a quad in her senior year which consisted of four bedrooms with private baths and a common living space. That was her favorite. She could be alone when she wanted and have privacy too.

We co-signed the lease and the payments for rent and utilities were automatically deducted from our checking account. We also paid for compulsory renters insurance and parking when she had a car.

Your son is 19 and should be making a lot of his own decisions. Based on our grand daughters experience it would have been detrimental to be 30 min from school. She was toooo social and there were some issues but she has a degree! She’s working in several bars right now because she can’t find what she wants. But she’s a good kid and will find her way, she also understands how lucky she is to have graduated with absolutely no debt.
 
Both of our boys moved into a 1 bedroom apartment their sophomore year. We wanted them to be able to walk to campus, so their apartments cost more than living in the dorm. They do get lots of amenities though, which they liked.

We personally did not want them to have the hassle of having to drive to campus and finding a parking spot in a huge deck. We wanted them to be able to wake up, stroll across the street and be on campus. Just makes it less stressful for them.

We also wanted them to live in active, student housing. Makes going to college more fun :)
 
1st DS....lived in the dorm his whole time. He was on a full ride for basketball so that pretty much sealed the deal.

2nd DS...... chose to go to UDM in the middle of Detroit. Lived in the dorm for two years and moved to two different apartments as a Junior and a Senior. There was no "we" in the mix. He did his own deciding at that point.
3rd DS....went to the Air Force. "We" wouldn't have dared told his sergeant "we" as parents wanted our son to live here or there. :rotfl:
 


Just coming back to say, Lilac, I would have loved the "we" in some of the decisions being done back then; just didn't get them. So enjoy the fact that you can help decide if that's what you would like. :)
 
What we found is schools really overcharge for food, at least with girls, our daughter living in an apartment really did not spend that much on food, not even close to what the dorm meal ticket cost
 
My son has been off campus for 3 years - once he rented an apartment with 2 other - the apartment complex had each of them sign a lease for their room. It didn't go well. The one guy brought in 2 big dogs who destroyed furniture. We ended up having to pay "our portion" of that and the guy said he'd pay us back. Well, that never happened. Plus he was in the reserves and had to be gone a weekend every month and my son ended up taking care of the dogs - that got old quick.

2nd place was a small house that turned out to be a dump. the one guy moved in before it was all fixed up and the company who owned it never fixed the holes in the walls or dealt with the cockroaches. They said he signed an as is contract. So they bug bombed the place a few time to get rid of the cockroaches every couple of months and dealt with the holes in the walls. One of the guys turned out to be a heavy drinker and kept forgetting to pay the bill he was responsible for which caused problems.

Current place seems to be going well - it's half of a duplex, his current roommates seem like responsible people. Of course they graduate this year which will leave my son having to hunt down roommates again for what we hope is his last semester at college.

You will want to have your sons name on anything you rent - and make sure they don't need your name on it too. Most places where both of my kids go to college require everyone using the space to have their name on the lease. They are allowed visitors but there is a limit on that. Not sure what that is off the top of my head.
 
Isn't part of going to college about transitioning to adulthood? Unless she lives in a very business-heavy geographical are, or works from home, she is going to have to commute, no?

Commute in the morning and home in the evening, yes, but multiple times daily? This is the dilemma for students who live a fair drive from campus. College schedules aren't like high school, where one class backs up to another all day. I have students who come into campus for lectures at 8 and 9am, then don't have another class until 2pm. Most choose to go back to their dorms or nearby apartments in-between, especially if it's a day when a lab will run to 6pm. Then there are the evening sessions, where kids get together for study groups, recitations, social functions, have lecture/lab, etc. Hanging out in the union or library all day (and evening) gets long and tiring, but how much sense does driving back and forth, back and forth make? Most of my students who have lived 20-30 minutes away eventually opt to move closer to campus, just so they aren't doing round-trip drives several times a day, or hanging out all day, killing time. Right now I am teaching a lab on Thursday evenings, from 5-9pm. One of the big issues for about half of the students is that the lecture that goes with this lab is only given at 9am, which means some of them are on campus for 12+ hours on Thursdays. I don't envy them a 30 min drive home after all that, especially in the winter. Students have no control over when classes are given, and although they know what they sign up for, knowing they will be on campus for 12 hours and actually being there for 12 hours are two very different things.
 
Going to college should be fun! You spend the rest of your lives commuting! He will be new on campus, not know anyone, commuting isn’t going to help. Study groups, parties, hanging out, clubs, downtime in between classes...

Good points! I do know that DS18 would rather save the $$ since he knows he will be responsible for 3 years of tuition out of his 7 year program, but anything that we can save now will go toward helping him for longer - and he can always schedule his classes so he has time in between for study groups. While the campus he will be at does have limited dorms (built in the past 15 years because they were still just an idea when I was there 20 years ago), so the whole campus is pretty much a commuting campus. The main campus where he's at now is the "living on" campus. But he can't stay there forever - his program is housed only at the satellite campus an hour away. So, he will be moving at some point....our dilemma is should he move this summer for the 2019-2020 school year, or wait another year?

He grew up in the area where the new campus is, and has friends who chose to stay local and commute to the nearby colleges (there are 3 pretty big colleges within commuting distance, so it is a popular option in that area) as well, so his social life will revolve around them more than frat parties, which he has ZERO interest in!
 
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Commute in the morning and home in the evening, yes, but multiple times daily? This is the dilemma for students who live a fair drive from campus. College schedules aren't like high school, where one class backs up to another all day. I have students who come into campus for lectures at 8 and 9am, then don't have another class until 2pm. Most choose to go back to their dorms or nearby apartments in-between, especially if it's a day when a lab will run to 6pm. Then there are the evening sessions, where kids get together for study groups, recitations, social functions, have lecture/lab, etc. Hanging out in the union or library all day (and evening) gets long and tiring, but how much sense does driving back and forth, back and forth make? Most of my students who have lived 20-30 minutes away eventually opt to move closer to campus, just so they aren't doing round-trip drives several times a day, or hanging out all day, killing time. Right now I am teaching a lab on Thursday evenings, from 5-9pm. One of the big issues for about half of the students is that the lecture that goes with this lab is only given at 9am, which means some of them are on campus for 12+ hours on Thursdays. I don't envy them a 30 min drive home after all that, especially in the winter. Students have no control over when classes are given, and although they know what they sign up for, knowing they will be on campus for 12 hours and actually being there for 12 hours are two very different things.

DS has been able to schedule his classes the way he wants to so far. There may end up being a class or two that has a funky schedule, but I commuted to (the same) college, too, and never in 5 years had to go back and forth to campus multiple times a day.

The apartment complex we are looking at is about a 15 min drive from the new campus. I know this is totally geographical, but it's one of those "you know you are from..." things when you calculate distance in minutes lol. It isn't far, and the area is semi-rural so it is completely common for people to drive 10-15 minutes just to get to the store or gas station. DS grew up in the general area and is used to it. 15 minutes seems like "right around the corner" out there.
 
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Just coming back to say, Lilac, I would have loved the "we" in some of the decisions being done back then; just didn't get them. So enjoy the fact that you can help decide if that's what you would like. :)

Right! lol

He pretty much takes care of himself, and will ultimately make his own decisions overall, but since we are thinking this would benefit us too, by paying a good portion of the rent so we have somewhere to stay when we visit "home" out there, this time it will have to be a mutual choice.

And, when I still pay the bill for an 18/19 year old, I will have a say in what I pay for...he is more than welcome to decline my money and do whatever he chooses, though! haha
 
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What we found is schools really overcharge for food, at least with girls, our daughter living in an apartment really did not spend that much on food, not even close to what the dorm meal ticket cost
You certainly have to check prices. And it depends on what your kids eat while living in an apartment. But both the public University my DD went to, and the Private University my son went to had much lower prices living in the dorm and eating in the dining hall than they would have paid.
But DD was going to school in Monterey, which is a very high cost area for rent. And the dorms are old World War II army barracks since CSU Monterey Bay used to be Fort Ord
https://csumb.edu/catalog/cost-need
 
Jumping in just to read the experiences on how it has worked out for others, since it is looking more and more like DD is going to end up at an urban school that doesn't guarantee on-campus housing for upperclassmen. I think the dynamics of leases and roommates and all of that are more worrisome that the cost (and since this school is in San Francisco, that's saying something!).
 
Going to college should be fun! You spend the rest of your lives commuting! He will be new on campus, not know anyone, commuting isn’t going to help. Study groups, parties, hanging out, clubs, downtime in between classes...
Both of mine commuted and are still immersed in college life just fine to the extent they want to be. As long as they get involved in something where friendships can develop, they can still have those experiences if they want them as commuters. DS is living in a house with others this year but plans to commute again his final year. He is fortunate that this is an option for him; for his roommates, it's not. Commuting has enabled them both to be debt free so far. Depending on what they can earn this summer, they'll probably need just a very small loan amount senior year. In today's day and age of high COL, I think students really have to weigh whether it's worth it in the long run to spend extra on living at school if they have the opportunity to commute, but that's just me. Certainly if students (or parents) feel they'll somehow be missing out on something, then it's up to them make that choice. But I really don't understand the bad rap that commuting tends to get around here.

Good points! I do know that DS18 would rather save the $$ since he knows he will be responsible for 3 years of tuition out of his 7 year program, but anything that we can save now will go toward helping him for longer - and he can always schedule his classes so he has time in between for study groups. While the campus he will be at does have limited dorms (built in the past 15 years because they were still just an idea when I was there 20 years ago), so the whole campus is pretty much a commuting campus. The main campus where he's at now is the "living on" campus. But he can't stay there forever - his program is housed only at the satellite campus an hour away. So, he will be moving at some point....our dilemma is should he move this summer for the 2019-2020 school year, or wait another year?

He grew up in the area where the new campus is, and has friends who chose to stay local and commute to the nearby colleges (there are 3 pretty big colleges within commuting distance, so it is a popular option in that area) as well, so his social life will revolve around them more than frat parties, which he has ZERO interest in!

DS has been able to schedule his classes the way he wants to so far. There may end up being a class or two that has a funky schedule, but I commuted to (the same) college, too, and never in 5 years had to go back and forth to campus multiple times a day.

The apartment complex we are looking at is about a 15 min drive from the new campus. I know this is totally geographical, but it's one of those "you know you are from..." things when you calculate distance in minutes lol. It isn't far, and the area is semi-rural so it is completely common for people to drive 10-15 minutes just to get to the store or gas station. DS grew up in the general area and is used to it. 15 minutes seems like "right around the corner" out there.
I commuted and I turned out fine! I scheduled my classes so that I didn't have to hang around much. And as a Nursing major, as an upperclassman I was in hospitals more than I was at school, which is the same for DD now. Everyone's circumstances are unique!
 
Leebee makes an extremely important point; most college schedules bounce all over the place in terms of timing, and the more that campuses use adjunct faculty, the more peculiar scheduling gets, because most adjuncts have more than one job, and need to schedule their teaching duties around that. This is DS' last semester. All of his classes only meet once per week this semester, and he does have large open blocks of time in the middle of the day. Also, At many campuses, parking is a very scarce thing, and paying for parking reflects that. (I spend a lot of time on a nearby college campus here, in a city where nearly everyone drives to work. Campus parking starts at $300/semester and goes up, depending on whether or not you are willing to park in the lots furthest from classroom buildings. My office shares a few medium-priced permits (hangtags) so that we have them when we need to go to campus for a few hours; it isn't unusual for it to take 30 minutes to just find a parking space, and another 30 minutes to walk from parking to your class meeting. So, right there, attending a 2-hour class/meeting can end up taking 4 hours of my day, and I'm not slogging in from parking Siberia.)

As to why commuting gets a bad rap, well, because it's commuting, and commuting ANYWHERE is a PITA. Cost issues aside (and I know it can be a big factor), living where you work usually makes life MUCH less stressful, and makes your lifestyle more flexible, because you don't waste a lot of time driving all over the heck and back. Sometimes you can skip owning a car altogether, which keeps you much more fit, and by itself is a huge money savings.

Living rent-free at your parents' place and commuting is one thing, as there usually is real money savings in that. Renting your own place far from campus and commuting anyway is something else entirely, and rather unusual for most students who are single (being part of a couple and splitting the difference between where you each have to go every day is, again, a different circumstance.)

One other thing: most FT commuting students still end up using a meal plan or campus dining for lunches, since there is nowhere to store food during the day. Eating out off-campus usually ends up being more expensive, and you can usually use funds that are in college savings plans to buy meal tickets, which you cannot do for eating off campus.
 
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Leebee makes an extremely important point; most college schedules bounce all over the place in terms of timing, and the more that campuses use adjunct faculty, the more peculiar scheduling gets, because most adjuncts have more than one job, and need to schedule their teaching duties around that. This is DS' last semester. All of his classes only meet once per week this semester, and he does have large open blocks of time in the middle of the day. Also, At many campuses, parking is a very scarce thing, and paying for parking reflects that. (I spend a lot of time on a nearby college campus here, in a city where nearly everyone drives to work. Parking there starts at $300/semester and goes up, depending on whether or not you are willing to park in the lots furthest from classroom buildings. My office shares a few medium-priced permits (hangtags) so that we have them when we need to go to campus for a few hours; it isn't unusual for it to take 30 minutes to just find a parking space, and another 30 minutes to walk from parking to your class meeting. So, right there, attending a 2-hour class/meeting can end up taking 4 hours of my day, and I'm not slogging in from parking Siberia.)

As to why commuting gets a bad rap, well, because it's commuting, and commuting ANYWHERE is a PITA. Cost issues aside (and I know it can be a big factor), living where you work usually makes life MUCH less stressful, and makes your lifestyle more flexible, because you don't waste a lot of time driving all over the heck and back. Sometimes you can skip owning a car altogether, which keeps you much more fit, and by itself is a huge money savings.

Living rent-free at your parents' place and commuting is one thing, as there usually is real money savings in that. Renting your own place far from campus and commuting anyway is something else entirely, and rather unusual for most students who are single (being part of a couple and splitting the difference between where you each have to go every day is, again, a different circumstance.)

One other thing: most FT commuting students still end up using a meal plan or campus dining for lunches, since there is nowhere to store food during the day. Eating out off-campus usually ends up being more expensive, and you can usually use funds that are in college savings plans to buy meal tickets, which you cannot do for eating off campus.
Bingo, the biggest benefit of commuting is to save on housing. When my kids moved off campus, they were not “commuting,” they were a few minutes off campus. And yes, there is a difference in the college experience living on campus vs. commuting.
 
Leebee makes an extremely important point; most college schedules bounce all over the place in terms of timing, and the more that campuses use adjunct faculty, the more peculiar scheduling gets, because most adjuncts have more than one job, and need to schedule their teaching duties around that. This is DS' last semester. All of his classes only meet once per week this semester, and he does have large open blocks of time in the middle of the day. Also, At many campuses, parking is a very scarce thing, and paying for parking reflects that. (I spend a lot of time on a nearby college campus here, in a city where nearly everyone drives to work. Campus parking starts at $300/semester and goes up, depending on whether or not you are willing to park in the lots furthest from classroom buildings. My office shares a few medium-priced permits (hangtags) so that we have them when we need to go to campus for a few hours; it isn't unusual for it to take 30 minutes to just find a parking space, and another 30 minutes to walk from parking to your class meeting. So, right there, attending a 2-hour class/meeting can end up taking 4 hours of my day, and I'm not slogging in from parking Siberia.)

As to why commuting gets a bad rap, well, because it's commuting, and commuting ANYWHERE is a PITA. Cost issues aside (and I know it can be a big factor), living where you work usually makes life MUCH less stressful, and makes your lifestyle more flexible, because you don't waste a lot of time driving all over the heck and back. Sometimes you can skip owning a car altogether, which keeps you much more fit, and by itself is a huge money savings.

Living rent-free at your parents' place and commuting is one thing, as there usually is real money savings in that. Renting your own place far from campus and commuting anyway is something else entirely, and rather unusual for most students who are single (being part of a couple and splitting the difference between where you each have to go every day is, again, a different circumstance.)

One other thing: most FT commuting students still end up using a meal plan or campus dining for lunches, since there is nowhere to store food during the day. Eating out off-campus usually ends up being more expensive, and you can usually use funds that are in college savings plans to buy meal tickets, which you cannot do for eating off campus.
For mine it’s really not as difficult as you make it sound! Mine each have a big lunch box that stays in their car and they can eat out of there or go eat in one of the food outlets with their friends when they want. All of DS’s classes have to be finished before 12 as he plays a sport. Team activities are in the afternoon and he’s likely to play basketball if he has to wait, so that helps keep him occupied and fit. Dd has a knack for doing a schedule that works for her - last year she only had to go to campus twice a week even without clinical; one of her classes was online. It’s also not very far at all, the commute isn’t so bad and parts of it are actually very pretty. To each his own! But it is a viable option for people, most just don’t dare talk about it here as it seems to be a taboo subject.
 

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