PARK: Rutgers needs better off-campus housing options
Column: The Queue
We all love fall time at Rutgers. Whether that be fall foliage on the College Avenue campus, game days or the Starbucks Truck finally selling pumpkin spice drinks. On the other hand, the brisk October weather also means it is time to start looking for off-campus housing.
The housing crisis is something that many of us love and hate. Rutgers only guarantees housing for rising sophomores, and while many first-years choose to live on campus, finding quality on-campus housing as upperclassmen is a challenge many of us face. As a result, around 60 percent of students live off campus.
Some on-campus apartments, like the Livingston Apartments and Sojourner Truth Apartments on the College Avenue campus, are just as costly as living off campus. Additionally, some of them do not have parking options or very expensive ones.
But off-campus housing is a great option if you want to upgrade from the residence hall and get away from a pretty steep housing bill. With my current off-campus lease, we were provided four parking passes, and some houses even come with a driveway. Many Rutgers students have a car on campus, especially to avoid the tragic LX struggles we all have experienced as first-years.
Finding off-campus housing is extremely overwhelming and difficult. Most college students have never rented before, and in addition to application fees and security deposits, most houses are signed before the end of the first semester — the year before you sign to live there. That leaves a pretty tight time frame to get a group of people to fill a lease.
The other issue is New Brunswick's insane rental prices. For luxury off-campus apartments, you can easily end up paying more than $1,200 a month for a shoe box, not including utilities.
For off-campus housing, doubles and triples are very common in college houses, and while I love my friends, not many are willing to share a room by their senior year. That is not to say doubles can go for upwards of $900 as well. At that point, you might be better off trying to score a room in the Sojourner Truth Apartments, especially if you are upperclassmen, for convenience and ease.
The main places college students look for rentals are the local property management companies, including Tverdov Housing, College Crossings and Premier Properties of New Brunswick: Rutgers Off-Campus Housing. Others resort to Facebook groups or taking over the leases of their friends.
I spent a lot of time on these websites over the past few weeks trying to find a four-bedroom apartment with reasonable rent for a group of my friends for next year. Whenever I would find a house we liked, it would coincidentally disappear off the listing site, meaning someone else had signed it already. In mid-October, the search for good houses is getting pretty slim.
As college kids, we all prioritize different things as well. From budget to location, we all have our preferences.
I lived at the Livingston Quads my first year and was very used to pretty quiet nights. Living off campus during my second and third year at Rutgers, I was lucky enough that my bedroom window faced the backyard into a much quieter side street, despite my house being really close to the bustling row of bars and restaurants. So, when looking for a place to live next year, I want to prioritize location in proximity to campus and my other friends' houses as well as safety.
What Rutgers lacks is more affordable, safe housing for students. Perhaps the University could provide more sources and resources for students to look for off-campus housing, like services with listings that update in real-time, personal reviews, tours or even housing fairs, which some schools have already done. Living in a college home with all your friends is really a canon event for most of us. But we could do without the added stress, poor landlords and high rent.
Annabel Park is a junior at Rutgers Business School, majoring in supply chain management and minoring in economics. Her column, "The Queue," runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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