Why I Would Strongly Suggest Living Off Campus To Anyone In College

Growing up I always was the kid who saved her money and my parents always told me they weren’t worried about how I would do financially when I was an adult. When I got my first job my parents agreed that I should put half of my income into a savings account that I couldn’t touch until I was 18.

By the time I went to college I had enough to pay one year of my tuition and fees after my financial aid came through, but I opted to pay it with a loan instead. Even with this loan, I have had to pull hundreds of dollars out of my savings account to pay for extra expenses. Even with having a good paying job, only being able to work 10-15 hours a week is not enough to sustain all of my expenses.

The fact is college is obnoxious overpriced and my university requires students to pay fees even if it’s for something they will never utilize. For example, I am required to have a meal plan since I am living in student housing, while I chose the lowest meal plan there is, it is still a complete waste of my money because I never eat at the dining hall. The University of Kansas’s dining hall is completely disgusting, to the point where I can’t even have a decent salad there.

But the fact that they require us to have a meal plan is completely unreasonable. Why should I have to pay more money to this institution (that is already taking thousands of dollars from me) for a meal plan I don’t use?

Another example of an unreasonable expense is parking. If you live in student housing and have a vehicle, it costs $315 just to park. Even with paying so much, I still 90% of the time have to park across the main road, walk across an overhead bridge and all the way back to my dorm.

Very rarely do I get to park in the lot right beside my dorm, even though at any given time there are eight to ten open spots, those are called “staff parking” and if found parking there, even for a short period of time students will be given a ticket.

I don’t understand why living and going to school at a university is so excited expensive. I’m paying six thousand plus dollars to live in a shoe box, that constantly has issues. Whether it's the elevator breaking or the WIFI going out or our rooms heat breaking when it gets to the coldest week of the year. What we get for our money when it comes to room and board isn't even close to what we should be getting. If I could go back, I would decide to live off campus in my freshmen year rather than in campus housing.

The fact is college is unreasonably overpriced. I understand they have to pay staff and keep up the campus but the prices they are charging students for the quality of services we get back, is leaving many students unhappy, me among them.