Why many college students are forced to spend more on housing than tuition

[jmecklenborg]

PBS does a puff piece on a serious issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWp4nMSuhmA

We hear absolutely no mention of...roommates. That's how you get costs down. I have lived with over 40 roommates almost entirely without incident (maybe 5 arguments, total, in many years of living with all sorts of people).

Also we hear no mention of basements since Austin doesn't seem to have many or any. Tons of people live in makeshift basement apartments in those cities where basements are ubiquitous.

Here are some places I lived in college and after...

This small house had three units. I lived in the basement apartment (it flooded twice):


I lived for a year in this converted garage...my landlord owned about 25 houses in the area. I worked for him a little and I credit him with getting me interested in becoming a landlord myself:


I lived in this three bedroom house for five years after college. The landlord almost always had five people living in it (one in the unfinished basement and one on the rear porch). I lived on the illegal rear porch shown here for two years, the rent was $250/mo. It didn't have any heat so I think I ran an extension chord in from the kitchen to a space heater. At some point I upgraded to an upstairs bedroom for $300/mo:


I lived in this small 2-bedroom house with one roommate for a year...we threw some awesome parties at this place. It didn't have a furnace...just a window unit that was a duel AC/heater. It looks like they got some sort of mini unit now on the outside:

[craigs]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I lived in the basement apartment (it flooded twice) . . . .

I lived on the illegal rear porch shown here for two years, the rent was $250/mo. It didn't have any heat . . . .

I lived in this small 2-bedroom house . . . . It didn't have a furnace . . . .

Ah, yes--the glorious mantle of Irish Catholic suffering again. Doesn't every hard-working parent aspire to have their kids get flooded out and go without heat in the winter? Good times!

[mhays]

I agree that affordability reporting should include roommates way more. That was how I afforded life in the late 80s and early/mid-90s. And no car.

[Crawford]

I think there's a middle ground. I don't want my kid living in a dangerous firetrap. On the other hand, some of the newer university housing is basically luxury housing, and absurdly wasteful and obscene for that age cohort. Roommates are a good thing for managing costs and developing a social network.