Rental Guide: Students talk on-campus vs. off-campus living

Is it financially better to live on or off campus?

Dorm Life

Fola Arowolo, junior

Ruskin… Is it financially better to live on or off campus?

Dorm Life

Fola Arowolo, junior

Ruskin Hall

Room rate: $3,595-$3,695 per semester ($899-$924 per month)

Food: Meal plan, $1,725 per semester ($431 per month) and an additional $150 a month for other food

Utilities: Included in room rate

Laundry: Machines in building are $4 to wash and dry a load

Parking: OC lot, $345 per semester

Total per year: about $12,540

Dorms are a luxury offered to about 44 percent of Pitt students.

“Get ready to see the scam,” junior Fola Arowolo said, walking to his apartment in Ruskin Hall. The scam to which he refers is the big price and small space of his Ruskin apartment.

According to the College Board, 55 percent of undergraduates at Pittlive off campus. But Arowolo has stayed in the dorm, though it gives him plenty of room to complain.

Arowolo’s biggest grievance, he said, is signing in visitors. It’s a long and, in some states of mind, cumbersome, procedure. Ruskin, like all other on-campus dorms, also enforces a rule that you can’t sign in more than three people at once, a rule Arowolo finds very annoying.

Additionally, “Getting mail is a hassle,” Arowolo said. “I have to go all the way down to Towers to pick it up. If I lived in South Oakland, I could have it delivered to my door.”

But Ruskin has its redeeming qualities as well.

“The location is prime,” Arowolo said.

Ruskin is situated close to several science buildings. As a biology major, Arowolo can practically roll out of bed and into class.

The junior also said that he likes the freedom of not having a Resident Assistant and the convenience of a kitchen in his apartment.

But despite his long stay in the dorms, Fola said he is looking for an off-campus apartment next year.

Apartment Life

Emily Smith, Junior

Dawson Street

Rent: $345 a month

Utilities: $100 a month (includes cable)

Food: $100 a month (subsidized by parents)

Laundry: Takes it home ($2.00 in gas)

Transportation: Pittsburgh Residential Parking Permit, $20.00 (per year) + $1.00 for guest pass

Total per year: about $6,780

For junior Emily Smith, the move to South Oakland this year has proved a good decision — it has provided her with some of the peace and quiet that she craves.

Smith lamented her experience in Bouquet Gardens last year, where all of her neighbors where loud, drinking boys. At her new place on Dawson Street, her neighbors are older people who keep the partying at a neighborly level.

Smith also finds it convenient that her landlord lives right across the street. He shovels her sidewalk and fixes anything that might break.

“Once, when a fuse broke, he was over within 10 minutes,” Smith said.

Smith said her commute time to class this year is not very different than it was from Bouquet Gardens — about 10 minutes — and her rent is a lot cheaper.

She also lives close to her parents in Monroeville, so her food and laundry are generally taken care of by them.

Smith enjoys her Dawson Street apartment so much that she plans to renew her lease for next year.