Proximity to highly regarded colleges comes at a price, according to a new study released by HomeUnion, an online residential real estate investment management firm.
Students living within a two-mile radius of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Stanford University face the highest rents in the nation, according to the analysis. Median rents near Stanford were $6,066 per month; UCLA topped $5,158.
HomeUnion researchers also compared the median rent for those within a two-mile radius of campuses belonging to colleges with enrollments of at least 15,000 students with the metro area’s market-rate rent. Though students at UCLA pay less in rent than those at Stanford, the premium they pay compared to nearby neighbors is a whopping 85.2 percent above the local market rate.
“Tuition for many institutions of higher learning is soaring, forcing students and their families to opt to reside in single-family rentals and other living situations off-campus,” says Steve Hovland, director of research at HomeUnion. “To minimize living expenses, students can rent properties further than two miles from campus or choose to have roommates in rental homes. 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.”
The following are the college towns with the most expensive off-campus rents, according to the HomeUnion study:
Source: HomeUnion
