Shall We Live Under the Watch of Rossetti?

While he hates the icy cold drive to campus from his apartment, Lyndon State College senior, Curtis Brown, says living off campus is worth it.

Kirstie Venne,  LSC junior who currently lives on campus, tried moving off campus, but came back to the residence halls after less than a month away because she missed the social interactions.

Out of the 1,429 students at LSC, 775 of them live off-campus.

"Having to get into your car when its freezing sucks," says Brown, who has lived off campus for the past two years. "Having to pay for gas to drive to school every day is a big negative too."

Venne agrees that living on campus makes life easier, especially when there are bad weather conditions.

"You don't even have to have a car," said Venne. "You don't have to come back and forth."

Another aspect that is different living on campus compared to off-campus is the social interactions.

Venne has lived on campus for the past three years. She briefly moved into an apartment at the beginning of her sophomore year before realizing it wasn't for her and returned to campus.

 "I felt too disconnected from people," said Venne, who says that her suite became her family during her freshman year.

However, independence is one factor that often causes students to choose to live in off-campus housing.

"People aren't doing rounds through their apartments, for sure," Director of residential life, Erin Rossetti, says.

One off-campus LSC junior, Andrew Cochran, stayed on campus for his first two years and is now renting an apartment for the first time this year, after getting married this past summer.

He says he does not feel that he is missing on any social interactions by living off-campus.

"If I want to do something, it's like a three minute drive, so I'll just come up," says Cochran. "I still maintain friendships with people."

Another thing that students might think about when making this choice is the cost of living on-campus versus off-campus.

To have a standard double room in Stonehenge costs $5,030 per year.  When dividing that by the nine months that a student stays on campus in a year, the cost per month for staying on campus is $559.  

This does not include the meal plan which, for unlimited meals, costs $1,708 or $189 per month for the school year. For the cheapest plan, eight meals a week, students pay $1,581, or $175 per month.

Brown said that he is definitely saving money by living off-campus, even while taking out loans to cover his rent. He pays $200 a month, splitting the apartment's $800 rent four ways between him and his three roommates, one of them his girlfriend.

"I always take out a refund check for more [than tuition] and I had to take out less of a loan to live off-campus," said Brown.

Cochran lives in a one bedroom apartment with his wife, and they pay $700 a month with everything included. This is $350 per month per person.

"It's certainly more expensive in the short term," says Cochran of living off-campus "because you have to take money out of pocket right away, but in the long term it's much much cheaper because I'm taking out less loans."

Cochran says his wife and him pay from $350 to $400 per month on food, which is similar to what they would pay on campus for a meal plan and no extra groceries.

Venne says she finds it easier to just add her room and board onto her schools bills.

The amount of financial aid that a student receives does not change if they get an apartment rather than live on campus.

"Financial Aid for a particular student would be identical regardless of whether or not they live on-campus in a dorm, or off-campus at a residence separate from their parents," said LSC financial aid officer David Martin. "They are considered to have the same cost of room and board calculated into their cost of attendance."

The only time the amount of financial aid awarded to a student would be affected by their living situation is if the student would be living at home with their parents.

Another thing that students who rent apartments might worry about is having renter's insurance. 

Renter's insurance can cover your property in the case of damage or theft as well as provide you with liability insurance in case you are responsible for damage to the building or people in it.

Brown says he hasn't bothered with renters insurance because, "I didn't want to pay for it and the house is already pretty crappy."

For the lowest amount of renter's insurance you can get, $15,000 property coverage and $100,000 liability coverage, it costs an average of $125 per year or about $10 per month.

THE LANDLORD'S LAW

Many college students like to drink, and smoke, and just get plain old rowdy, and for landlords these are just a few of the problems.

This causes landlords to be reluctant to rent to students from Lyndon State College in some cases.

"They tend to not follow the lease and allow as many friends to crash there as they want," says landlord, Aine Baker. "They don't understand that all those extra people cost a lot in water and sewer bills and they do a lot more damage."

Aine Baker of Northeast Kingdom Property Management manages a dozen buildings in the Northeast Kingdom, including buildings in Lyndonville and St. Johnsbury.

Baker says he does rent to college students if their application passes, though often a parent is required to co-sign.

However, he has sometimes had some trouble with them.  Baker however says that he runs into problems with other tenants too, not just college students.

"They think we don't have any bills and can afford to take care of everything," says Baker. "They don't realize we have a mortgage, taxes, insurance, water and sewer bills, and repairs."

Another thing that has to be dealt with, as a landlord, is evictions.

 "If a tenant is late 10 days, we start eviction proceedings with the court," says Baker. "When they lose, we take them to small claims court and then the judgment goes to a collection agency and also goes on their credit report and is in the court documents as an eviction."

However, if the tenant pays the rent that is due before the eviction is processed, the claims must be dropped.

"It's not a pretty process for the tenant," says Baker. "Be responsible enough to follow the contract that you signed and you won't have any problems."