Most college towns offer a variety of off campus housing options, ranging from first class apartment buildings with security gates and resort style pools to converted houses with multiple apartments. Students searching for off campus living typically have a lot of options to choose from.

When deciding where to live, it is important for students to understand the personality of the place they are moving to before they move in. Just as different dorms, fraternities or sororities have “personalities,” apartment complexes also have personalities.

You’ve heard “birds of a feather flock together,” and that’s true in off campus locales. Some apartments have a reputation for being home to “serious students,” while others are party central.

If you are serious about your studies, you’ll want to avoid the noisy party complexes and find yourself a place in a quiet apartment complex, perhaps one inhabited by graduate students or even young families.

No matter where you live, it’s important to set up a place in your apartment for studying. Whether your study area becomes the kitchen table or a desk in your bedroom, it’s nice to have a spot that provides the right atmosphere and space for quality study time.

Remember too that just because you live off campus doesn’t mean the library is off limits. Spending time on campus studying is a great way to ensure you keep your grades up and keep distractions to a minimum.

College students are notorious for getting by with what they have, but with a little help from home, students can equip the perfect college kitchen without breaking the bank.

Experts on off campus living recommend that roommates get together before moving into an apartment to determine what they already have and what they need to get.

Many apartment kitchens come equipped with microwaves, so the last thing your student needs is to end up in an apartment with three microwaves when everyone brings their own.

A few essential appliances and the basic cooking utensils can usually be gathered up from “extras” found at home or from relatives like grandmothers, aunts, and uncles. If your student insists on buying new, send them to a local discount retailer. There’s no reason to buy gourmet appliances when you’re living in a college apartment.

The Basics:
1 large skillet and 1 small skillet
1 set of sauce pans
2 cookie sheets (or one cookie sheet and one pizza pan)
1 colander
1 can opener
1 pizza cutter
Spatulas and serving spoons/fork
Sharp knives (a set in a knife block is nice to have)
Toaster
Coffee maker
Cutting Board
A set of 8 dinner plates, salad plates, and cereal/soup bowls (they don’t have to match)
Flatware for 12
8 drinking glasses (these will be supplemented with plastic cups from every party)
Coffee cups, including a couple of travel mugs
One covered Pyrex-type casserole dish
A set of plastic containers with lids (in various sizes)
A pitcher
Ice cube trays

With all of these essentials, your college student will have everything he or she needs for a functional kitchen.

Parents of today’s college students are often accused of being too involved in their chi
ldren’s lives. When it comes to guiding their decisions, most students need your help. What they usually don’t need is for you to make all their decisions for them.

One extremely personal decision that should be left primarily up to the student is where to live when looking for off campus housing.

Although you certainly can expect to be involved if your paying the rent, college is a time for your child to make decisions for him or herself. Certainly you should be involved in setting the monthly budget for rent, but the decision about where to live should be left, primarily, up to the student.

Your student knows more about his or her lifestyle on campus than you do. He or she probably has a good idea about where he or she wants to live, and often they are working in tandem with friends who will become their apartment roommates.

When parents get involved in the decision, particularly if two or three sets of parents get involved, finding a place to live can become a very complicated process.

Campus resources are widely available, as are online services for finding an off campus apartment. In most cases, it’s best to guide your son or daughter to those sources and let them take the lead. The best reason: if they end up not liking where they are living, it won’t be your fault.

If there’s one piece of advice every parent of a college student should heed, it’s
“Don’t show up at your child’s apartment on campus unannounced.”

Many an argument has begun and lots of feelings have been hurt when Mom or Dad decides to “pop in” to their student’s apartment unexpectedly. Most of the time the experience doesn’t turn out quite like Mom or Dad had in mind.

Instead of Sonny looking up from his chemistry book and saying, “Mom, it’s so great to see you,” chances are you’ll find an apartment in disarray, dirty dishes in the sink, and if your student is home, he may or may not be studying. Your surprise visit could be met with less than welcoming words.

“But I’m paying for this apartment,” you might say. Yes, that should give you some rights of visitation, but unannounced guests on campus are just as bad as unexpected guests at home – there’s never a good time for one.

When you do visit your student at his or her apartment on campus, resist the urge to do what moms have been doing for decades: don’t walk in and start picking up.

Your son or daughter’s apartment is their home away from home. Most likely they aren’t going to keep it as clean as you might like, but if they are comfortable there, that’s really all that matters.

Schedule your visits to campus well in advance. Make sure the time works for your student’s class and study schedule, and respect their social schedules too.

College is a time of independence, and as much as your child loves you, you’re probably the last person they hope to see when the doorbell rings unexpectedly.

On most college campuses, students start out living in a dorm. Many universities require students to live on campus during their freshman year. Lots of students stay on in the dorms for their sophomore year, and by junior year they are ready for the independence of an off campus apartment.

On some campuses, a shortage of dorm space propels younger students into college apartments, where they are forced not only to adapt to life away from home but where they become responsible for setting up house off campus.

Parents of college students can help make the transition to off campus apartment life easier for their student with these simple tips:

1. Help your student furnish his or her apartment with second hand furniture from home. Surrounding themselves with familiar items can make students in apartments feel more comfortable right from the start. Getting them moved in, or hiring movers for them can also be a great way to let them just focus on school or registration.
2. If your child doesn’t know how to cook, now is the time to pass along those simple family favorites. Teaching your son or daughter to make the “basics” in their own kitchen will help with the transition to off campus living.
3. Suggest, but don’t dictate, ideas for making the apartment comfortable. One of the most exciting things about moving into an off campus apartment is the ability for a student to create his or her own “space.”
4. Help your student outfit the kitchen with all the essentials by providing duplicates from home. There’s usually no need to spend a small fortune on dishes, flatware, or pots and pans. Let Mom upgrade her dishes and give the kids the old ones.
5. A great housewarming gift is a box of cleaning supplies. Most students are not going to run out and buy those, and yet getting back their deposit upon move out will depend largely upon how clean they’ve kept their place.

Students adapt to new situations much easier than adults, but with a little help from Mom and Dad, the transition to off campus living can be a breeze.

If your child goes off to college for any length of time at all, chances are you will get that call one day that starts, “My roommate is driving me crazy…!”

When that call comes in, many parents jump into action, thinking it’s their job to “fix” the situation. It’s a syndrome that comes from the parenting styles of recent years, a concept sometimes referred to as “the helicopter parent.”

In reality, most roommate problems are usually small disagreements that can usually be solved between your student and the offending party. Remember too that sometimes the first thing a student does when a problem arises is call home. If your child is living in an apartment with more than one roommate, your chances of getting “the call” increases.

However, experts who deal with college aged kids say there’s usually no reason for parents to get involved in roommate troubles. In fact, most of the time just lending a sympathetic ear and giving your child a chance to vent is all it takes for them to figure out what to do on their own.

Of course there are issues that may require parental intervention. If a roommate stops paying rent, theft of personal property has occurred, or your child feels unsafe in the situation, by all means a little “Mom and Dad” intervention may be required.

Typically, tiffs between roommates are minor and will blow over within a few days, and most of the time the situation is resolved easier if your student handles it his or herself.

Someone should make a rule that exempts parents from moving their kids more than once a year, but if you have college age children, you know that’s not the case. With many students moving every year, the “Hey, Dad, can you help me move?” question can get really old.

To make moving into a college apartment easier for everyone, including Mom and Dad, we’ve compiled this list of tips.

1. Pack light. Part of the fun of being a college student is living a lifestyle different from what you have at home. Experienced college apartment renters know that less is more when it comes to keeping your apartment clean and, of course, moving.
2. Leave the heavy furniture at home. A big heavy headboard is nice to have, but it’s no fun to move every nine months. Stick with a bed frame and mattress, and get creative for a headboard by hanging posters or other artwork above the bed.
3. Box like items together. It seems logical that you’d put kitchen items with kitchen items and bath supplies with bath supplies, but it’s worth mentioning.
4. Move your clothes on hangers. It’s easy to move clothes straight into a closet by keeping them on their hangers.

Moving into a campus rental is exciting for students and sometimes back breaking for their parents. Everyone will be happier by following the four tips above.

When your son or daughter goes off to college, the transition can be hard. Each year brings different “firsts.” When it’s time for the first off campus apartment, a lot of parents panic.

On one hand, it’s exciting to see your college student venturing off into a more independent living situation. On the other hand the issues of leases and roommates and safety and security can leave you lying awake at night.

The best advice for parents of first time college apartment renters is this:
1. Make sure you, and more importantly your student, are comfortable with the safety and security of the off campus housing. Many campus apartments are really nice, but you’ll also find the “student slums” surrounding many campuses. Make sure you’re comfortable with your student’s college apartment rental.
2. Find out whose name is going to be on the lease. (Many college apartment complexes will require the lease holder to be 21.
3. If a parent’s name is on the lease, the parent is legally responsible for the rent. Decide how you want to handle that. Will your child be responsible? Will you pay the rent? Will roommates pay you or the landlord?

Once you have the safety and financial issues figured out, you’ll be ready to help your son or daughter move into their off campus housing.

When you lease an apartment, chances are you are paying for routine maintenance of your apartment as part of the monthly rent. That means that if something in the apartment breaks, you can make a call to your landlord or complex manager, and your problem will be fixed.

What’s covered in basic apartment maintenance?

In the simplest of terms, anything that is in the apartment when you move in is probably covered. That means the air conditioning and heat, the water and your appliances are all covered by general apartment maintenance. Plumbing is also covered, so if the toilet gets clogged up or overflows, chances are there’s a maintenance person to fix it. If the carpet gets ruined in the process, the carpet would be covered, as well.

Some things may not be covered by your apartment maintenance. When you sign your lease, be sure to review the exclusions that will explain these items.

If you lose your keys or lock yourself out of your apartment, you may be able to get someone from the maintenance team to open your door for you, but you also may get a bill for the privilege. If you lose your keys, you can expect to be charged to have new keys made and the locks on your door changed.

If guys playing ball in the courtyard break your window accidentally, the cost of repairing the window may or may not be covered by your maintenance fees. Sure, you can try to recoup the amount from the ball players, but you may find yourself stuck for the repairs.

Renters insurance is a good idea for anyone who rents an off campus apartment. Rates are usually very reasonable. Deductibles – the amount you must pay if you need to use the insurance – can be relatively low. Renters insurance would kick in to cover the cost of a broken window or new locks if maintenance did not cover it.

Renters insurance also insures your valuables against theft, so it’s a good idea to buy it whenever you rent.

College is a time when kids spread their wings and fly, or at least it’s the time to be learning the various flight patterns. For parents, college is definitely a time to let go and allow your child to make his or her own decisions – and mistakes.

When your child moves into an off campus apartment, it’s a new level of independence. In the dorms there are RAs on the floors – older students who are available to answer questions or help the younger kids out. In a sorority house, there’s a house mom, and house members who are charged with maintaining order in the house. The same goes for a fraternity. In an apartment, these intermediaries are not present, which means when conflicts arise, chances are, if the kids can’t handle it themselves, you are going to get the call.

When your son or daughter calls you with a complaint about his or her roommate, your first inclination is probably to solve the problem. Whether that means providing your child with the script for dealing with the roommate or driving the 200 miles to campus to do it yourself, as parents we are good problem solvers.

But when that call comes, give yourself a few more seconds to consider the problems you cause by “saving the day.”

Independence comes from dealing with your own problems. College age children are definitely old enough to fight their own battles. As a parent, your role has now shifted to one of support versus control. Avoid the urge to solve the problem and instead, have a conversation with your child about options he or she may have for dealing with the situation.

More than one simple argument between roommates has been blown out of proportion by the involvement of well-meaning Moms or Dads. Help your child grow by keeping their problems at arm’s length. When it comes to roommate problems, it’s best for the issue to be solved within the apartment walls, with just a little help in the far distant background from Mom or Dad.