Good decision!
Excellent! Congrats on your decision!
While the transit pass is not free, $100, more or less, is an incredibly sweet deal for unlimited transit for the year! My husband pays almost double that, just for the month, to take the Metra into Chicago every weekday.
I assume you’ve visited DePaul already and are familiar with the area… but I lived very near Lincoln Park when I was young and single. It’s a great area for a young person to hang out in… lots of things to do, little music venues, bookstores, coffeehouses, etc. Some places come and go, but the types of places remain the same…
Maybe in the next three years, you and a friend (or two or three) can go in on an apartment in the city, which could be much cheaper than dorming.
Best of luck to you at DePaul!
Lincoln Park is a fun place for young people.
And trust me, after you leave Chicago, you’ll miss Lake Michigan. Saltwater beaches just aren’t the same.
My kids commuted to college and they were much happier doing so. They never were big fans of the cafeteria and would not have liked eating there 3 times a day (as on campus students generally do). They also liked that they had the freedom to come and go from the college since they had a car - while many of the on campus students did not. There were drawbacks to communting at times (driving in bad weather, for example) but overall, they never regretted being commuter students.