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More Students Choosing to Live at Home During and After College
By Chris Hassan
Posted July 18, 2012 12:34 PM
More students commuting between home and college.For many students, a big part of the college experience is the chance to live in a dormitory alongside peers their own age. However, as the cost of earning a bachelor’s degree continues to rise, a number of students are choosing to live at home and commute to class in order to save money.
More Than Half of College Students Live at Home
Based on data from a new Sallie Mae study, 51% of college students lived at home during the 2011-2012 school year. For parents and students, taking this action was just one way of lowering the cost of higher education.
According to the study, students enrolled in two-year public schools were most likely to live at home, as 77% of them did so. Additionally, Hispanic students, more so than Caucasians and African Americans, chose to commute to class during the 2011-2012 school year.
Living at Home Equals More Savings
During the four years Chrissy Callahan attended Brandeis University in Massachusetts, she made the decision to live with her family and commute to school, which was not far from home, Reuters reports. Callahan believes this helped her family save about $45,000.
"I lived close enough to school that it didn’t really make sense to blow so much money away to live in less-than-ideal living situations," Callahan, who graduated in 2010, told Reuters. "I definitely appreciate the discipline that commuting gave me. It forced me to plan out my days in advance and prepped me for the real world."
While some students may think that commuting to and from college will lead to even more costs due to the high price of gas, the U.S. Department of Education states that this action can actually save them up to $6,000 per year.
Many Students Staying at Home After Graduation
Whereas in the past, students typically went from living away at college to getting a job and paying for a place of their own, this too is changing. Lauren Ramsdell, a graduate of North Carolina’s Elon University, is among the degree holders who see no problem with spending a little more time at home before they set out on their own, CNN reports. Individuals like Ramsdell are known as "boomerang kids."
"Just because you move home doesn’t mean you’ve failed," Ramsdell told CNN. "There used to be a logical progression: college, job, move on with life. But that’s not happening anymore."
In a separate article, CNN highlighted 2011 data from the Pew Research Center that found 53% of individuals between 18 and 24 years of age were living with their parents.
