The 15 Most Expensive College Towns

There’s no way around it: College is expensive. And it’s not just the tuition and books — you also need somewhere to live. HomeUnion, an online real estate investment management firm, released a list of the college towns with the most expensive off-campus rents throughout the nation.

“As college students return to school this month, we wanted to let them and their families know where off-campus rents would be the most expensive,” Steve Hovland, director of research for HomeUnion said in a press release. “This study illustrates where living near campus is disproportionately more expensive than the market as a whole, and off-campus housing may eat into their college savings.”

To create this list, HomeUnion first narrowed the list of all colleges and universities in the U.S., only considering schools where more than 15,000 students are enrolled. From there, the group looked at their internal database from the second quarter of 2016 to determine median monthly rent within a two-mile radius of university campuses and then compared it to the market-rate monthly rent in the metro area. Here’s what they came up with.

The 15 Metro Areas & Schools Where Housing is Most Expensive

1. Los Angeles/Westwood: University of California, Los Angeles
Median Rent: $4,343 (80% above market)
Market Rent: $2,409
Enrollment: 43,000

2. San Jose/Palo Alto, California: Stanford University
Median Rent: $5,705 (63% above market)
Market Rent: $3,499
Enrollment: 16,000

3. Miami/Coral Gables: University of Miami
Median Rent: $2,818 (44% above market)
Market Rent: $1,916
Enrollment: 17,000

4. Boston/Cambridge: Harvard University
Median Rent: $3,287 (44% above market)
Market Rent: $2,276
Enrollment: 21,000

5. Oakland/Berkeley, California: University of California, Berkeley
Median Rent: $4,070 (44% above market)
Market Rent: $2,822
Enrollment: 37,000

6. Salt Lake City/East SLC, Utah: University of Utah
Median Rent: $2,043 (41% above market)
Market Rent: $1,443
Enrollment: 32,000

7. Dallas/Richardson: University of Texas, Dallas
Median Rent: $2,058 (39% above market)
Market Rent: $1,476
Enrollment: 23,000

8. Seattle/University District: University of Washington
Median Rent: $2,786 (39% above market)
Market Rent: $2,044
Enrollment: 45,000

9. Lansing/East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University
Median Rent: $1,282 (35% above market)
Market Rent: $948
Enrollment: 51,000

10. Portland, Oregon: Portland State University
Median Rent: $2,327 (34% above market)
Market Rent: $1,724
Enrollment: 28,000

11. New York City/Greenwich Village: New York University
Median Rent: $2,881 (34% above market)
Market Rent: $2,139
Enrollment: 57,000

12. Chapel Hill/University City, North Carolina: University of North Carolina
Median Rent: $1,739 (31% above market)
Market Rent: $1,329
Enrollment: 29,000

13. Gainesville/West Hills, Florida: Santa Fe College
Median Rent: $1,510 (29% above market)
Market Rent: $1,173
Enrollment: 17,000

14. Springfield/Upham’s Corner, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts
Median Rent: $2,013 (26% above market)
Market Rent: $1,596
Enrollment: 29,000

15. Ithaca/Forest Home, New York: Cornell University
Median Rent: $2,082 (24% above market)
Market Rent: $1,675
Enrollment: 22,000

Creating a Housing Budget

You may not be able to do much about the cost of living in the area where you live, but you can do something about making sure you qualify for a rental. Having a good credit score is important, as landlords often review a version of your credit report during the application process. You can see where your credit currently stands by taking a look at your free credit report summary, updated every 14 days, on Credit.com.

Image: sturti