<p>Did any of you go there from out of state? What did you do about your housing? Did you live in graduate housin gor did you get your own apartment? How was that considering how expensive NYC is? Please sure your experience. Did anyone get an apartment outside of the City and just commute? if so, was it that big of an inconvenience?</p>
<p>Columbia offers graduate student housing to all PhD students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and does so at a deep discount. You could share a Columbia apartment for as little at $700 a month. Unless you want to be away from campus for some reason, you should probably take this, as it's far cheaper than anything on the market. (The average price for a studio rental in Manhattan is currently $1700 a month.) I would bet that NYU has a similar program, though I don't know for sure. </p>
<p>If you don't want to live in a university apartment, both schools have offices that can help you find off-campus housing. As I said, it will be much more expensive, even in the outer boroughs. Living further away has its advantages--it's easier to treat grad school like a 9-to-5 job if you have to ride the subway there every day--but it could also make you feel somewhat disconnected from the life of your department. (Although that could be a good thing if you'd like to keep a certain distance.)</p>
<p>I would say that living in the suburbs is a bad idea, for two reasons: 1) You're living in the suburbs; and 2) The nearby suburbs are not really all that much cheaper, and many of them might necessitate owning a car, which means that you'll spend as much if not more than you would have living in the city without a car.</p>
<p>i'm from CT, and never spent significant time in the city, so i had no idea where/how to look for housing besides through the school. it was so much easier for me to live in grad housing at columbia, and it worked out wonderfully. it was fairly expensive (i think. again, nothing to compare it to), but it was a beautiful new building right by the school so it was definitely worth it.</p>