<p>My son is a freshman in CFA, currently living in West. He is talking about wanting to share an apartment off-campus, as a sophomore next year, with three other guys. He says, “It could be cheaper…”</p>
<p>My impression is that the rent per student for an off-campus apartment anywhere near BU would not be less than about $600/mo. </p>
<p>I’d appreciate some feedback on this, if possible.</p>
<p>Depends. The savings are mostly in food versus the dining plans. Most BU kids rent in Allston and that neighborhood is pretty safe and is crammed with kids and young professionals. Off campus Allston is more of a party scene than a dorm, but you know your kid. West borders Allston so the distance is likely another 5 to 15 minutes walking to CFA. </p>
<p>One of my kids got into a BU apartment as a junior and, again, the attraction was not having a meal plan because she could cook for herself, be independent and not deal with dining halls. Those aren’t usually available for sophomores unless one is pulled into an apartment by some upper classmen.</p>
<p>To me it seems like it would be more expensive (and certainly more of a hassle) for the following reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Deposit on apartment, and having the worry of subletting in the summer.</li>
<li>Buying furniture.</li>
<li>Utilities/internet service on top of rent.</li>
<li>Possibly more (?) spent on food than with dining plan, because I can’t imagine my son doing much cooking; for one thing, he’s in the theatre program and has evening obligations.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>I’m not too worried about the partying, but somebody mentioned in another thread that once you have opted out of university housing you can’t go back. My son is in a program (theatre) where all the students spend spring of junior year in the UK. Presumably if they are living on-campus the residence office works things out; this would surely be harder with an off-campus apartment.</p>
<p>If you go abroad, you can go back into the dorms. And now that StuVi2 is open, I don’t know how much over-demand there is generally; a lot depends on transfers and who leaves and when because with a school that big they can’t know how many kids will be there and in rooms until school is open.</p>
<p>Any money saving should not be the main reason for moving off campus. It’s more the freedom. </p>
<p>Sophomores are in an odd place because they generally can’t get into BU run apartments, so a lot of them fear being stuffed in West or Warren with freshman. </p>
<p>My suggestion is to get actual listings sent to you by a real estate agent so you can look at them online and see the numbers. Then you can argue this out. Also, check to see if he has to pay a network fee to BU to connect from off campus.</p>
<p>I can tell you from my experience that it is NOT cheaper to have your kid live off campus. First, there’s the expense of the T to get to campus. The housing itself is very expensive, even if you find a place for 750/mo, there are utilities on top of that. Food is expensive and kids tend to end up grabbing a bite on the run instead of cooking in. Take out is not cheaper either. Rentals also run for the full year, so the student would have to find someone to sublet for the summer, or continue paying rent and living in Boston. boston is a pretty pricey city, not as bad as NY or LA, but it’s expensive to live there. My experince is that living on campus and having the lowest meal plan was cheaper than what my son is paying now.</p>
<p>Lergnom, are you saying that you think StuVi2 will reduce the number of BU students seeking off campus housing? Probably you do mean it will reduce the on campus housing crunch so as to make more attractive housing available across the board, on campus…</p>
<p>When I look at the map, the parts of Boston where students could live looks so small…and, considering the number of schools in the area, I figure, “Low supply, high demand = very high rents.”</p>
<p>IamWandering, are you saying that <em>nothing</em> is available under $750 per month per student, even if, say, four of them share, and double up in the bedrooms in the apt?? I did look at the few listings that are on BU’s off campus site, and they do seem high, but the folks posting those listings seem to have pretty high standards too.</p>
<p>I guess I do need to follow Lergnom’s advice and consult a realtor’s listings.</p>
<p>I don’t expect off campus living to be cheaper, and I know it is about freedom. I just don’t want it to be outrageously more expensive.</p>
<p>My son now has a potential off campus roommate for next year who seems like a relatively organized and together person and who says, “It can be cheaper, if you do it right.”</p>
<p>I agree with everything Iamwandering said. I also want to add that a parent must co-sign the lease agreement and have it notarized. This means that you are on the hook for a year no matter what happens - transfer, illness, drop out whatever. You are liable for the year unless you can find someone to sublet.</p>
<p>My freshman son also came home talking about moving off campus. We said no, even though we hear “all the other parents” are ok with it. There have been fires, there is no security, street people go through your trash looking for cans, appliances don’t work - the list goes on and on with one of the biggest reasons being you can’t get back on campus if you change your mind.</p>
<p>DS lived off campus for two years in a terrific apartment that abutted West Campus. For him, it WAS less expensive than living on campus. The apartment was NOT as nice as the Student Village apartments but it was less expensive by far. The downside was that he had to sublet it for two summers but was easily able to do so. The cost of the Student Village apartments is almost the same as the cost for a West Campus dorm room AND board plan. DS’s apartment was about $600 including all the utilities. He didn’t have the added T costs because of the location of his apartment. Yes, we had to cosign the lease. </p>
<p>Now…having said all of that…we didn’t allow either of our kids to move off campus until they were juniors. In both cases, we actually would have preferred that they stay ON campus. However, in both cases, the housing costs and such worked out in our favor. Both were very good about looking for safe, clean, well cared for, and convenient student housing. DS lived (as I said…one block from West Campus dorms). DD’s house is 2 blocks from her college campus (not BU).</p>
<p>Experiences living off campus are mixed. I’ve seen kids living in every situation from the pits - half their fault, half the place - to the palace. The rent $$ depends a lot on the number of kids, who has which bedroom (bigger = more $ usually in a roommate situation), distance, etc. Unless a kid is part of a group that will be living together, ideally a group that already has a place and needs to pull in a roomie, I wouldn’t want my kid trying to go off campus until junior year.</p>
<p>Psshht. It’s MUCH cheaper unless your kid has expensive tastes. I can agree though, that it IS more complicated. You will have to put down an apartment deposit (usually the first months rent, last months rent and security deposit) as opposed to the $600 BU requires. Also if your son has financial aid, it cannot be released until the first day of school, so you will not have access to those funds to pay for your deposit. You will be on the hook for the whole year, but if your son finds the apartment liveable, I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find subleters, especially in the summer when many are looking. As for furniture, it is also very easy to find many people give away furniture or leave it on the street in early September. (You would want to make sure its safe and clean it up a bit though.) There are certain things that you buy new and certain things you buy used, but I’m sure you can figure that out for yourself. You can also usually find things inexpensively on Craigslist. If there’s something the roommates want to splurge for, it can be split. The only way I could really see it being more expensive is if one didn’t have a roommate. At $11,848, the cheapest residence and dining plan comes to $1300 over a period of 9 months! I currently pay 700 and less than $50/60 for utilities. There is no way in heck that I spend $550 on food. (And I love to cook!) </p>
<p>While having an apartment has its annoyances, perhaps noisy neighbors or lazy landlords, so does on-campus living. I really disliked the fact that if my friends were over (for any reason), I had to tell them to go home and often times they had to get a cab, which is expensive. </p>
<p>In any case, I can’t deny the fact that its taught me more responsibility, allowed me to open up my social circle and made me more aware of life’s realities in general. </p>
<p>So if your kids up for that, then I say go for it!</p>
<p>Question: How does it affect having a social life in college? I am not really going “off campus”, but may consider commuting from my brother’s place in Cambridge. Near Central Square. So mainly I have two questions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Will I be able to get into dormitory residences to see/study with my friends by simply swiping in?</p></li>
<li><p>Is the commute worth it? Its so convenient for me right now, but I cannot imagine having to life my life around the bus schedule or T schedule…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Question 1: I would have to side with the parents, because if you move off before junior year, you probably won’t have a very established social circle. You will not be able to swipe in on campus, but there are plenty of places, namely the library and the late night study lounge across the street, where one can study. Other popular spots include the GSU.</p>
<p>Question 2: I think the MBTA bus and train transportation are pretty reliable in general. The 47 bus has about 15-20 minute service between campus and here.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all the recent comments. I didn’t know about the parents having to co-sign a lease and having to have it notarized. I wonder if all landlords require this.</p>
<p>TheSUBlime, you mentioned financial aid. For most students, financial aid is only applied to tuition, right? My son has a partial scholarship and Perkins and Stafford loans. I don’t see how residential costs would be affected one way or another in his case.</p>
<p>I think just about all landlords require co-sign and notarization, mostly because the student needs to show that they will be able to pay for the apartment somehow. Most undergrads rely on their parents for some portion.</p>
<p>Well, I really meant to refer exclusively to loans, particularly those taken out to cover cost of living and other expenses. Sorry for the confusion!</p>
<p>Social life off campus can be better because the restrictions go away. BUT, I still say it’s better for juniors and seniors, especially those with a group of friends who’ll live together and low housing numbers (because they’re less likely to get a BU apartment they like). I’ve heard every kind of report of how well it works when a kid takes a room in an already existing group of renters - meaning sometimes good, sometimes bad, often in between. </p>
<p>If a kid is looking for less intrusive RA’s then try looking for a group that’s getting an apartment on campus and join them because the RA’s in the apartments don’t do nearly as much RA’ing.</p>
<p>What does “low housing numbers” mean?</p>
<p>A housing number is the order in which you select housing. They do need a system, after all. So each class is done by number and you go into the housing office and they rush you through the selection as fast as they can. They have floorplans - for some of the old, small buildings, they have what look like old photocopies - but you don’t get a lot of time. </p>
<p>You get your number after the time you really need to decide about off campus but a rule of thumb is that a bad freshman number then leads to a good sophomore number. Another rule of thumb is that if you have advanced standing from AP credits and the like then you’ll have a better number. </p>
<p>With Stuvi, parts 1 and 2 both open, the upper classes are more comfortably housed than before and that seems to be helping the sophomores. StuVi is a better apartment than most kids will live in for years after they graduate. StuVi2 has some of the best views in the entire city. You pay more for the comfort.</p>
<p>If a person gets a bad room situation, there are a lot of ways to swap out. Those are detailed on the BU housing web site.</p>
<p>Hmm… so I guess it might be better to wait until junior year to move into my brother’s house. In my opinion, the meal plans at BU are simply ridiculously overpriced -$12 or $13 per meal, many of which I sometimes do not have the time for. Plus the dorms can be kinda cruddy for the amount that we pay… Also - I have been warned that living off campus has a negative effect on the total amount of grant money that you are offered. If so, how much?</p>
<p>I am interested in the grant question too. My impression is that most grants are applied only to tuition, not room and board. (As I mentioned in a previous post on this thread, my son’s scholarship grant from BU covers a portion of his tuition.)</p>
<p>DS is home for the holidays now and he says that some kids are “not allowed to live off campus because of their financial aid.” I assume this means that their financial aid covers housing…</p>
<p>In addition, my son mentioned that many, many CFA students live off campus as sophomores. He says it is very helpful to have the greater space of an apartment to practice music and to rehearse scenes for the theatre program.</p>
<p>Lergnom, thank you very much for your explanation of the housing selection process.</p>
<p>Financial aid, whether grants or loans, are applied against the “cost of attendance,” which includes tuition, fees, room, board, books and miscellaneous costs. Whether it feels like that depends on how much you get! Many schools (and I don’t know if BU is one), calculate the COA at a lower amount if the student is off campus, so moving off may in fact have a negative effect on someone getting a lot of financial aid.</p>
<p>One other thing to note - be aware that in Allston, Brighton and Newton, it is a violation of zoning laws for more than 4 unrelated individuals to live together in one rental unit no matter how large. Unscrupulous landlords for years have been cramming students into apartments, since it may be cheaper for each individual student but a windfall for the landlord. You could rent an apartment at a rent of $3000 to 6 students, say ($500 per), but would never get that amount if rented to a family.</p>