<p>Yeah the title says all. I just wanted to know how much does an average student living in an on-campus apartment and no meal plan spend? I am sure it cant be the estimated 50k dollars, thats a little too much. Thanks for any input</p>
<p>I think you are looking for more specifics but here is a start:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=327602&highlight=cost%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=327602&highlight=cost</a></p>
<p>Here's another estimate, specific to on-campus apartments (Century): <a href="http://housing.usc.edu/financialFact/financialFact.htm%5B/url%5D">http://housing.usc.edu/financialFact/financialFact.htm</a></p>
<p>A big variable is food cost. In theory, four apartment-mates can eat pretty cheaply if they are organized and shop/cook/eat "family-style" as a group. But that takes a lot of know-how, time and discipline, and I don't know of any groups of students who have successfully done it. So a lot of frozen pizzas and individual cans of soup get eaten, the kitchens fill up with four sets of weird collections of groceries, and the students eat out a lot. This is not based on a scientific survey, just what I have seen or heard about, so there may be some who do it.</p>
<p>The year USC played Texas in the Rose Bowl I stayed in my son's apartment for a few days when I came out for the game. Two of his apartment-mates had gone home for the holidays, so there was extra room. Their refrigerator was disgusting, filled with all kinds of decomposing stuff that had not seen the light of day since August. Their kitchen was totally disorganized, with mismatching pots and pans and lids and a lack of good, basic cooking tools. So if it was much more complicated than opening a box and adding water, it did not get prepared there. I spent a couple of days throwing a lot of stuff away and getting their kitchen organized (with their permission of course). I have no idea if their meal preparations were any different in the spring, and did not want to know, really. I kind of think that kitchens are wasted space for most students, as no one ever has time to really use them right. That's a long way of saying that if you think you will save money cooking your own meals in an apartment, probably not.</p>