Family policy - freshman year is on campus dorms (and no car). Prefer but do not require to off campus for senior year.
Most big flagships just don’t have the facilities to have upperclassmen on campus. One daughter is at a school that ‘requires’ the first two on campus, but it’s not enforced because there just isn’t enough room. There are many international students and they usually want to be on campus. My daughter did do her first and second years on campus, but now lives in a (nice) home just off campus.
The Greek housing at her school is owned by the school and the costs are just the same as for a dorm room, but no meal plan is required. Big con is that the Greek Village is about 3-4 miles from the school. There are shuttles, but most kids have a car. There are a few non-Greek kids living there too (mostly pilots) and they seem to like it. My daughter never wanted to live there. Her off campus housing is about $2000 per year cheaper than living on campus. It would be more but she has to pay for the summer too. I think it has been a good mix.
Other daughter lived in the very traditional dorm, but belonged to a sorority and ate at the house (across the street from her dorm). Since freshman year she’s lived in the sorority house on campus. It is about $1000 per semester cheaper than dorm/meal plan, including her sorority dues. Benefits are it is cleaner, and I think a little safer than the dorms. Cons to her is not being able to have her boyfriend over in her room (he can visit in the public rooms of the house). It has also been nice because she can just leave if she wants a semester off without having to break a lease. She did it to do an internship (non-school sponsored) and for study abroad. Simple.
That school required one year in the dorms (or a greek house on campus). The schools has traditional freshmen dorms with one big dining hall, but has some housing for upperclassmen, more like apartments but you pay the rent to the school. Also lots of ‘town’ housing surrounding the school. Snow removal is an issue if you rent privately.
The model at my son’s school is different. Almost all first years live in dorms. Second year everyone moves off campus. There is a student ghetto (literally called the ghetto) right next to campus filled with apartments. He’s in the middle of a large city and the ghetto has two good size grocery stores. Parents of upper classmen have told me to expect to save between $3K-$5K per year on room and board. Since everyone has to go off campus there isn’t a lot of angst and drama around it…it’s known going in. We will probably get him some $ on a meal card so he can grab lunch on campus when he is super busy.
For my oldest, it is the perfect set up. He loves the idea of being in his own apartment next year and is good at managing money. My youngest (a HS junior) wants to go to the same school. He cannot manage money at all and I envision lots of challenging FaceTime calls about money. 
Wouldn’t running out be enough of a lesson?
A friend told me BC has a unique dorm requirement/policy. The students are guaranteed housing for 3 of the 4 years, but not all 4. I guess that’s what they have room for, and many students do some time abroad. Friend’s daughter did junior year in an apartment with an Aug to Aug lease, stayed in Boston and worked that summer, then moved back into the dorms for senior year. That way she wouldn’t have to stay in Boston after graduation as she didn’t know where she’d get a job.
If she hadn’t done her year ‘out’, she could have applied for a 4th year in the dorms but it wouldn’t have been guaranteed and then she’s have had to find a shorter lease (impossible) or paid rent for the summer after graduation without living there.
My son attends a small university that will have an excess of undergrad housing when a new dorm is finished next fall.
Currently, freshmen are required to live on campus. Because of the social aspects of the House system, living on campus is desirable for over 80% of students. The primary reasons for living off campus are not enough room for sophomores currently and the cost of board, which is required for those who live on campus.
The off-campus, university-owned apartments are becoming additional grad student housing next year. It’s unclear exactly how the 200 spots in the large new dorm will be used, but they will decide by Feb/Mar. The students are somewhat upset that the new dorm does not have the same kitchen setup as the current dorms; it only has 3 student kitchens and 1 dining room for all 200 rooms. My son will be a sophomore next fall, so he will probably end up in the new dorm next year and move back to the old dorms for junior and senior year.
I’ll say this going thru the visit process. The dorms are so much better than they where back in my day. From dinning variety, wifi, computer/study rooms, and other amenities why would you leave? It’s like resort living.
The biggest surprise to me in watching the off campus trend is the extraordinary social stratification that occurs. I realized that was always the case, say, at Harvard Business School, where some wealthy internationals just camp out at the Four Seasons hotel for 2 years and others have a more typical poor grad student experience. That seems to have trickled down to undergraduates as well now as I watch the Facebook posts of some off campus freshman with daily maid service and a concierge. I suppose it is a sign of the degree of inequality currently, although when I was in school the billionaires’ kids needed to suffer in the same dorms as the rest of us.
For us (kids were high school classes of 2016 and 2017) we were looking for schools that would guarantee housing for 4 years (although we expected that they would probably spend senior year off campus). My son chose U Miami (FL) that does guarantee 4 years. However, the sophomore dorms at UM are very unpopular with students so the majority go off sophomore year. As a result, I have had to subsidize the higher costs of off-campus housing plus the capital expense of furniture that will probably have no residual value after 3 years of use! At least DD chose Georgetown which requires 3 years of on-campus living.
In hindsight with DS and looking forward with DD - I prefer the on campus options.
My DS was as follows:
Yr 1 Dorm
Yr 2 - Student Apt, not owned by university but on campus edge with individual rooms/lease and shared common area
Yr 3 - DS and 2 friends he met first yr. rented a house on campus edge - this was worst year, the landlord was bordering on dementia and was prone to fits of unreasonableness AND the two friends and DS all hated each other by the end of the year. Its been 6 years and they have never made up.
Yr 4-5 - Rented DS an individual room in a house a few blocks from campus, owner only rented to upper classman (this was a nice arrangement, the landlord was professional and the house mates were Jr/Sr’s or Grad students who were over the drama and had their acts together.
DD heads off in the fall - she picked up a 100% tuition/housing all 4 years scholarship to a school that requires they live on campus the first two years if they come from more than 30 miles away. Thank goodness the dorms are amazing, she will be there the duration!
When DS was in college, the freshman doors were institutional but once one went up in years, the dorms became more apartment like but still had the hefty dorm price tags which is why everyone went off campus.
@ucbalumnus He is a slow learner.
First year on campus definitely. Consider it training wheels.
After that I don’t care where they live. I lived in the dorms freshman year then in a series of off campus locations which worked for me. Living off campus was way better than the dorms for a multitude of reasons. If my kids want to stay on campus that’s fine too.
Granted, there are colleges where living on campus for 4 years is part of the “experience.”
But there’s a lot to be said about moving off campus, too. Many kids outgrow dorms. They want more privacy and a quieter, more grown-up atmosphere. It’s OK to be learning the realities of adult life - rent, utilities, upkeep - while still an undergrad.
I myself moved off campus as a sophomore – almost everybody did – because my university had a chronic housing shortage. My daughter went to a school with more housing options, and some truly great campus apartments, yet she was done with dorms by her junior year, and with our blessing moved off campus with 4 other friends.
As with much about college - it’s all about the vibe and the kid. There is no single rule about what’s “best.”
While the social stratification may be more obvious now with greater economic inequality that can be shown off in social media, the “off campus trend” may actually be the opposite, in that many universities have on-campus housing for a greater percentage of students than they did decades ago.
My D16 moved off campus after the first year and found it relatively lonely (even with two roommates), but she does enjoy cooking for herself, having a full-sized bed, etc. She just misses having someone around all the time.
I suspect S19 can probably be persuaded to live on-campus for two years when the time comes, but I’ll certainly give him a choice. I have a harder time seeing him in an apartment sophomore year (he’ll still be 18, D16 just turned 20 as a sophomore).
It’s nice for kids to have a choice that suits them and their situation. Some students are very ready to handle rent, utilities, lawn and sidewalk maintenance if needed; others would rather wait. In some places, rent + utilities + furniture for a year’s lease is much cheaper than the cost for an academic year in the dorms with a meal plan; in others, off-campus housing is scarce and/or more expensive.
I see the argument for the community of people living together in the same conditions, but that also varies by college/community. In both of my kids’ cases, such a large number of students live off campus and within the same areas as others, while there is enough isolation in the dorms, that it is a wash. In my D’s case, she was assigned a dorm that houses mostly international students who stuck together in their own culture groups to a great extent, whereas she lives near and interacts more with a variety of students off-campus. In my S’s case, he is in a suite-style dorm with his own bedroom and mostly interacts with his own suitemates in the dorm setting, so being in an apartment with other students would be little different.
My D thrived moving off campus after freshman year. She’s not best friends with her roommates, but that’s nice too as it gives her some social variety and she’s learned how to handle all sorts of things on her own. She has a car but walks from her rented duplex on one side of a campus to her classes on the opposite side and stays on campus most of the day, except trekking the mile back to make and eat lunch. (She likes that too as she likes a good workout and can choose to walk or run it four times a day instead of pounding away on a treadmill, and the weather is rarely bad enough to bother her.) She works off campus and has done so by her choice since the middle of her freshman year, so having the June-May lease has served her well. Freshman year, she had to find off-campus friends to stay with so she could work over winter and spring breaks. (No way did she want to spend a month at home when she could come for a few days here and there and still keep her job and independence in her college town.) Her housing, food and utilities cost much less compared to the dorm and meal plan, and the car is one she has had since HS, so her not having it there would only save us some insurance money.
S17 still hasn’t decided his preference for next year. He’s more likely to prefer mediocre dining hall food over buying groceries and making his own meals, and off-campus housing costs are closer to the dorm costs for him. He has a volunteer position on campus instead of an off-campus job. Many of the complexes are within walking distance or offer shuttles, pretty much the same as the dorms. The ability to have a good queen-size mattress and whatever his friends do will be the deciding factors I think.
I prefer my students live on campus all for four years. My DS’s school requires on campus with a meal plan the first two years. I’d be willing to pay for a single for the next two years. Off campus housing is frat houses or apartments in older buildings.
There’s nothing all that great about living in a regular dorm for all four years.
Only reason to live in university housing for 3 or 4 years is if the school has those later years organized into some sort of useful/meaningful experience. Like a residential college set up.
Otherwise, an apartment in the typical student ghetto is just fine and often is less expensive. While the trend is for schools to try to retain more students for longer on campus (since that means more revenue for the school), I’d prefer not to send those extra dollars to the school unless I’m getting something for it other than extremely expensive shelter and food.
I prefer on-campus living with meal plan all for years, if it can be afforded. I don’t see a point of living alone in an off campus apartment except for money, because the unnecessary commute sounds inefficient.
But I don’t have any illusion on meaningful full college dorm experience or whatever. The dorm will be reasonably safe and resting while providing the best proximity to the school. The dining hall food will be reasonably edible and nutritious without time spent on grocery shopping and cooking.
Because college tuition is so expensive, I think the more economical decision is spending bit more on dorm to maximize whatever returns from the tuition - be that higher gpa, better research opportunities, building more social relationship, etc, if it can be afforded.
" I don’t see a point of living alone in an off campus apartment except for money, because the unnecessary commute sounds inefficient."
Most students don’t live alone off campus, and many (MANY) ‘off campus’ apartments or rooms or houses are closer to the main parts of campus than the dorms. There is no unnecessary commute. Groceries can be delivered, and a crockpot or Instant Pot can be a great time saver, with food available 24/7.