<p>Oh dear, sounds like one more time, the advice is – let them make their own decisions. </p>
<p>It sure is hard letting go!</p>
<p>Thank you all.</p>
<p>Your son will be fine. Mine moved to an apartment in May of his freshman year (stayed in town that summer for a job) and it did force him to grow up fast. Being responsible for rent, lease negotiations, shopping, cooking, moving, acquiring furniture, etc. - by the time he turned 20, all these challenges were already old hat. I compare that to the kids I know who spend 4 years in a dorm and are, in my opinion, at a disadvantage when they go out into the world and are still so sheltered. Experience gives you confidence.</p>
<p>screener22–I agree, living in an apartment does make you responsible for things like that if you were not already doing those before you went off to college (cooking, handling money, etc.). I don’t think that being in a dorm is a disadvantage though, unless parents are still dealing with all of those things for their kids. All of the colleges we’ve visited where kids stay on campus for 4 years though, have on campus apartments for upperclassmen where they do cook, clean, etc.</p>
<p>They are not always fine. It is a risk, but having a sullen kid at school is a risk too.</p>
<p>My D was sure she wanted a bed and bath in a home near campus .We let her try it-only about 10% of students at H live off campus. She ended up felling very isolated and went back after taking a semester off. She found a House suited to her needs and is very happy this semester.</p>
<p>Glad she is happy now ,fauxmaven,but the situation at Harvard is quite different from what the OP is describing. Harvard has few students who move off campus so more of the action is on campus. At Wisconsin, much more of the action for upper classmen will be off campus.</p>
<p>My son goes to Madison. It really depends on where he moves.</p>
<p>I told my son he would be in the dorms the first year, and then it is up to him. Dorms give structure when adjusting to life in college. Even though the food isn’t the greatest, at least he doesn’t have to worry about his next meal.</p>
<p>For his Soph year, he moved into, what I would call, a Private Dorm. Basically apartment buildings right on campus that are like the dorms, except for RA’s and Food Service. Sr year, he moved into a house on campus. 8 guys in a house smaller than my first apartment. But, kids are kids, and he is saving some coin.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Pros: Money.</p>
<p>Cons: Money - jointly liable for the rent, so you have to be careful about his friends.</p>
<p>Other than that, it is just “different”. Some private housing is closer than some of the dorms.</p>
<p>As I recall, the Greek Houses are on one end of campus. If that is where his friends are, then I don’t see a problem. You might want to see if there is someone at the Frat that is responsible to make sure the kids are making the grades in their classes.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>How much “social pressure” do kids put on each other to “study”. Usually the pressure is to postpone studying to go play. “Study” pressure is what you get from your close friends. Everyone else in the dorm is social pressure to play.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Either your kid will eat his veggies or not. Oh, you mean the quality of the food. Unless he has the time put into cooking, I doubt the quality of the food will be any better. He might get more variety in the dorm. In any case, does it really matter? If it does to him, he will figure it out.</p>
<p>BTW: He might be able to get a meal plan the 2nd term if it doesn’t work out for him the 1st term.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>No. Kids will take advantage of whatever they want. The living communities primarily benefit the 1st year student (where they try to get kids with similar interests into the same dorm, and have special programs for them). In many respects, the Frat is a living community.</p>
<p>My son moved off campus sophomore year. his big U does not have housing for upperclassman. There are a lot of nice housing options off campus in his town specifically for college students. Most have their own shuttles to/from campus, pools, tennis courts, activities, etc. </p>
<p>One thing to look for is individual leases. My son’s apartment has four boys in a four bedroom/four bath. Each one has his own lease, so if somebody doesn’t pay then the rest of them don’t have to worry about covering the rent.</p>
<p>My son didn’t really cook before too much. this year, as a junior, he has discovered the electric skillet.
He does buy a block of 25 meals, which he uses for a hot lunch every day on campus.</p>
<p>When he was looking for an apartment, one requirement for us was that it had a shuttle. The “regular” apartments for individuals and families don’t have those. I didn’t want him to drive to/from class when it was icy, etc. It also meant we didn’t have to buy a parking permit.</p>
<p>At son’s apartment, if you signed your lease before Christmas break for the following school year, then they waived the deposit. basically, if you wait until almost the end of the year, the choices will be picked over.</p>
<p>My son also liked the hustle/bustle of his dorm. His complex has group activities, bbq’s, etc but I don’t think he’s ever gone. He enjoys his own place and does things with the roommates.</p>
<p>his apartment is cheaper than the dorms. He has fewer distractions from studying. A lot of kids at his school move to a new complex each year, but my son stayed in the same apartment for this year. He has talked about going to more “grown up” townhome type living for next year.</p>
<p>You really don’t want the list of cons. I think you have some idea what many of them are, but there are always more, believe me. We hit a lot of them and I’m sure there were more and are more. </p>
<p>My kids lived in slum quarters at cheap rent and I don’t know who lived with them as there were resident hoboes and vagrants in the count. The good part about that is that the costs and damages were pretty much limited, though you’d be surprised at what can be racked up. A friend of mine’s daughter moved in with a roommate into a very nice off campus apartment and that was a whole other story. I don’t know that much about it, but there were some roommate issues and mid year, my friend was stuck with the rent as the other girl left school. There was the choice of going after her or the parents, maybe… I don’t know who signed what, and then there were some things that were damaged, and all sorts of other problems. She ended up payig quite a bit more than any of the university options, and it was a whole lot of trouble. ALso any conflicts have to be self resovled with out university rules and RAs. Yeah, the dorms are lax and the RAs slack, in many cases, but when push comes to shove there is a line in the sand there. Not so when you rent on the economy.</p>
<p>“I know that most sophomores at our mega U move off campus, mainly because there just isn’t housing available” - That seems to be true at most state U. </p>
<p>Often there is only minimal saving vs dorms because 12 month lease is needed. (Check lease details - there may be risk of increased rent if a roommate drops out). But the food savings can be big if the student cooks at home, without eating out too much. At some schools there is option of a on-campus (or near campus) apartment complex owned by the school. That eliminates the cons related to slumlords.</p>
<p>S1 lived at home, lived in an apartment; S2 is in a dorm. The financial advantage of apartment life is mainly the food expenses, which are erased if he is mostly eating out and doing very little cooking. The notion that mine would apply the cooking skills I so deliberately gave him did NOT turn out to be true! There is conflict with the crazy people next door. There is calling the cops, there is the drug and alcohol issue (S1’s roommate’s dad liked to come for the weekend and buy them all alcohol – they were underage). There is the overdue rent and the loss of the security deposit.</p>
<p>So it isn’t all building independance, studying hard, and getting away from that partying dorm. Our experience is that your choice of roommate gauges your success. Your personal organization skills and interest in risky behavior is another important piece. I think you could say he has to stay put and feel good about that. His rosy image of how cool it will be is not likely to be the reality. But sooner, or later, living on their own without much of a safety net is a good thing, even if it’s hard to watch. Either way, I think you are asking the right questions and worrying in a completely normal mom way :)</p>
<p>Your kid can bring home is dirty pots and pans for you to scour along with his laundry to be washed when he lives off campus!</p>
<p>Both my S’s moved off campus after freshman yr. </p>
<p>S1 lived in the 4BR-4 Bath-separate leases type apt. for 2 years. Then he (and same roommates fr. the apt.) moved to a house in the ghetto-ish area that was easily walkable to his big state u. It should have been condemned but the boys loved that dump of a house waaay better than the apts. </p>
<p>After freshman yr. S2 and three friends moved straight into the student ghetto neighborhod that bordered the university. It was the dumpiest dump (worse than S1’s) you can imagine… no heat or AC :eek: but it was a huge and became the social hub for the neighborhood. The majority of neighborhood was populated by students. It was the kind where there were sofas/recliners and grills in the front yards.
There was always something going on. His walk to class was shorter than when in the dorm.</p>
<p>They learned to pay the bills on time and take care of household problems that arose.<br>
They ate their share of hamburgers and pizza but also had lots of neighborhood communal dinners. They loved it and will never forget those dumpy houses where they had so many good times w/ their friends.</p>
<p>Despite the football season tailgating,weekend bar hopping,video game playing,ESPN watching time wasters…they both graduated in four years with gpa’s above 3.0. debt free and are gainfully employed. There were bumps in the road but it all turned out fine.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, My kid has gotten much better about not bringing a bunch of dirty laundry home since he moved into an apartment. When he was a freshman in the dorm, he brought tons of dirty clothes home at every break. He now does much more laundry at school since he has a washer and dryer in his apartment. Dishwasher too so that and being able to cook has been an improvement over dorm life.</p>
<p>Note that Madison also has cooperative houses:
[Welcome</a> to Madison Community Coops | Madison Community Co-operative](<a href=“http://madisoncommunity.coop/]Welcome”>http://madisoncommunity.coop/)
<a href=“http://nasco.coop/guide/node/547[/url]”>http://nasco.coop/guide/node/547</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As a practical matter, this is only possible if (1) there is a supermarket within walking distance, or (2) the student has a car.</p>
<p>Both of my kids moved off-campus after sophomore year (at different colleges). Neither had a car. Neither had a supermarket within walking distance. Their food costs went UP when they moved off-campus.</p>
<p>Lots of wise words, thank you. If he feels we made him do something he didn’t want, he could find plenty of ways to turn it in to a bad decision (not that he would, his guilty and anxiety would kick in before then). But the ownership of the decision is important. He is a good kid, who is still heavily influenced by his environment, though the choice about his environment needs to be more and more of his making. </p>
<p>This learning to let go thing is really hard. Can you tell he is my first? Thanks all.</p>
<p>Packmom - no a/c I can understand as being a choice, but no heat?! I might draw the line at that. Even NC gets pretty nippy in the winter and space heaters can be dangerous if not used properly (aka college students). Obviously all worked out fine for your family as they’ve graduated and moved on with happy memories.</p>
<p>I made mine stay in a dorm his sophmore year and he was okay with it. His curriculum was demanding and it was fuss-free to stay on campus. Also, he had a room with a full kitchen if he wanted to cook and only had to get a limitied meal plan. Junior year he moved off campus and didn’t realize any significant savings because the rents were high close to campus and that’s where he wanted to be since he didn’t have a car. </p>
<p>I would thoroughly investigate his dorm options (are there upperclassmen dorms with more apartment-like amenities?) as well as off-campus housing (see if the university endorses any of the leasing companies for off-campus apartments, etc). Then let him decide within an acceptable price range if you are paying.</p>
<p>Basic Question: Can FA (grants & federal loans) cover off campus living costs?</p>