In a city with endless apartment options, at some point during their college career, Northeastern students are usually forced to decide between living on campus or venturing off with a group of friends.

Having your own place sounds great and so is the freedom it offers. Usually you will have your own room and can have friends over without signing them in.
It’s easy to think up positives to living off campus, but what are the negatives?

Specifically around Northeastern, apartments are extremely expensive. Compared to other cities in the United States, Boston ranks as one of the highest in terms of cost of living. This can tremendously affect students who want to live in an apartment relatively close to campus.

For many students, paying a month’s rent is a hefty and near- impossible task. For students who don’t have the cash, they have to rely on federal and private loans to cover the cost of rent. The school usually calculates the cost of living and determines how much you need in order to meet the rent for the school year.

Coming from experience, I know that it is difficult for students to keep up with paying rent. Not all students have time or access to a job and even if they do, they are usually paid minimum wage. And money earned from a job cannot always cover monthly rent if a paycheck is just enough to buy food, use public transportation and go out on weekends.

So what are the options for making living off campus easier and more affordable? One idea is implementing a regulation to lower the cost of rent for full-time students. This could be legislation brought out by the state government or even just by Northeastern’s administration. Some sort of regulation could pressure realtors to lower the price of rent. Realtors purposely target students for high rent because they are aware that we are desperate for apartments close to campus.

I live on Columbus Avenue. The location is great, but I pay an extremely high monthly rent – I pay nearly as much as my sister who lives in one of the nicest parts of Brooklyn. Not only do realtors target students with high-priced rent, they sometimes avoid fixing problems in the apartment. For over a month, I have had problems with my agency ignoring my requests. But should I be surprised? They are a business with one common goal (yes, making money).

I can rant all I want about the realtors, but that won’t get me anywhere. There needs to be more pressure on these agencies to give students the service they deserve. This should be organized by students who live off campus that have been frustrated with a lack of care from their landlord and realtor agency. If students unite to demand better service and lower costs of rent, I believe the effort will return tremendous results.

Renting your own apartment is something students should experience before they graduate. Besides the freedom, a better living environment and a private space, it is a learning experience. Living in an apartment with roommates is a part of growing up and learning responsibility.

To make living off campus even more pleasurable, the cost of rent needs to go down and good service must increase. Students must get what they pay for and should have to worry less about the high cost of their monthly rent.

The life of a college student is not easy. We’re facing a shaky future due to the unstable economy and high unemployment rate. The process of getting where we want should be as smooth as possible. We’re already paying a lot of money for a wonderful education:  Let’s lower the cost of living so the transition to success will be easier for all of us.