Do KU Students Score Better Living On-Campus or Off? Our Findings

As a freshman at the University of Kansas, Aminah Syed drove 50 minutes both ways between Kansas City, Kansas, and Lawrence twice a week.

By the time her first semester wrapped up in December, she knew she would need to find a better living arrangement.

"It was getting really aggravating to just keep going back and forth, and it's a lot of wear and tear on my car and my mental health, quite honestly," said Syed, who's on track to complete her degree in multimedia journalism and political science next school year.

She and a friend spent the next two years as roommates in the Jayhawker Towers - one of four on-campus apartments at KU.

New and returning students have more than a few housing options to choose from before the school year kicks off in August.

In addition to apartments, the university boasts 10 residence halls and 12 scholarship halls, where students can pay somewhat less in exchange for helping out with cooking and cleaning duties.

Off campus, Lawrence offers dozens of other apartment complexes and rental properties.

Syed plans to live in an apartment near campus until graduation.

"I didn't renew my on-campus lease in time, so I had to find off-campus housing," Syed said. "It wasn't any fault of the university at all. I would have loved to stay at the Towers for another year."

Next school year, two-person apartments with private bedrooms at Jayhawker Towers will cost each roommate $1,019 a month for the length of the school year and provide about 730 square feet of space.

The same living arrangement at the Stouffer, Hawker or McCarthy on-campus apartments costs $1,317 a month for about 890 square feet of space.

On the most affordable end of the spectrum for on-campus apartment living, four students in two shared bedrooms at Jayhawker Towers can pay $591 a month for 730 square feet of space.

Best value for student housing

Although the cost of living on campus has modestly increased in the last five years, a Star analysis found that university-sponsored housing options remain among the most affordable for students - as long as they aren't afraid to share close quarters.

Off-campus apartments generally offer more space to residents at a wide range of price points.

"It's really hard to say what is going to make or break the living on campus experience - whether or not you have a car or you have a lot of friends on campus or you can easily have access to people," Syed said. "But just being so close to your classes really was beneficial."

Comparing prices can be challenging because on-campus leases last 10 months and are marketed to students at the total sum they pay over two semesters. Most private apartment leases last a year and are advertised at their monthly rental price.

University owned options require all students except those living in an apartment to purchase a KU dining plan, which adds to the price tag. But the university covers the cost of all utility bills, while most off-campus apartments require tenants to pay for utilities like electricity, water and gas separately from rent.

KU scholarship halls

In general, the most affordable on-campus living option is a scholarship hall, where students sign up to either clean the hall three times a week or cook meals for all residents once a week.

Adding in almost $3,000 for required food expenses, the cost of living in a KU scholarship hall next school year will come out to $791 or $845 a month, depending on the floor plan.

That's up from $661 or $706 for the 2021-22 school year, archived housing data shows.

K.K. Amini and Grace Pearson are both co-ed scholarship halls. Six other halls only house women and four only accept men. All scholarship hall dorms feature shared bedrooms for two, three or four students.

The average square footage of shared suites at K.K. Amini, Margaret Amini, Krehbiel and Rieger is 460 square feet, while the average offering at the other eight halls is 195 square feet, according to data provided by KU Housing & Residence Life.

Private apartments in Lawrence

By contrast, the least expensive off-campus housing options offer significantly more space. An analysis of the most affordable leases at 25 Lawrence apartment complexes found that the average floor plan is 693 square feet.

The average rental rate for those offerings is $910 a month on top of the utility bills or fees that most management companies expect residents to pay for separately.

There are exceptions, though.

Hawks Pointe near KU's campus offers options as low as $500 a month, including all utility costs. A dorm-style four-person suite provides 200 square feet of space - barely more than most on-campus scholarship halls.

If more space is a priority, three roommates at The Landing Lawrence can pay $590 a month each, plus electricity, for a 987-square-foot floor plan.

For students who value their privacy, the Red Hawk and Bluejay Apartments offer private 530-square-foot suites for $650 a month plus water costs.

Six of the 25 complexes evaluated by The Star - Sagebrook on 9th, Parkway Commons, Aberdeen Apartments, 700 Mass Apartments, Hunter's Ridge Apartments and Sunrise Terrace - don't have any monthly rental rates starting below $1,000.

KU residence halls

Kelsie Gana, an incoming freshman from Overland Park, decided to live in one of KU's 10 residence halls.

"I wanted to be able to meet new people, and it just seems like a great way," said Gana, who plans to study biology.

"I didn't even know you could live off campus. I didn't know we were allowed to."

Unlike some universities, KU doesn't have a freshman residency policy that requires students to get a waiver to opt out of living on campus. But university-sponsored options are encouraged.

"Aside from the community-building aspect of living in KU student housing, a major benefit for KU students is round-the-clock access to professional and student staff where they live," said Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a KU spokesperson.

Staff members connect residents to student services, including academic support, health care, safety resources and more, she said.

Financial aid and scholarship money can be applied directly to student housing and dining charges, Barcomb-Peterson said.

KU's 10 residence halls require students to purchase a dining plan, which costs between $4,400 and $4,900 for two semesters, depending on how many meals students pay for.

Some residence hall suites are private, while others feature shared bedrooms.

Adding in the cheapest meal plan, the average monthly price point for a private residence hall suite is $1,428 for a 10-month lease. Private floor plans provide an average of 165 square feet.

For a shared 2-person space, each roommate on the cheapest meal plan will pay $1,238 a month on average. Corbin, GSP, Ellsworth and Hashinger offer 205 square feet on average for shared spaces and Self, Oswald, Downs and Naismith offer roughly 275 square feet.

For a shared 4-person space, each roommate on the cheapest meal plan will pay $1,335 a month on average. Lewis, Templin and Ellsworth provide roughly 520 square feet of space, while Self, Oswald and Downs average 760 square feet.

Other relatively affordable off-campus options that could suit students include Park 25 Apartments, HERE Kansas, The Links at Kansas, Village Square Apartments, Fieldhouse Apartments, and Autumn & August Place Apartments.

Park 25 offers 500-square-foot private suites starting at $775 a month and rolls the cost of utilities into rent.

The other five all feature leases between $800 and $900 a month, but all of them, except HERE Kansas, require tenants to pay separately for utilities.

Gender-inclusive housing

In February, KU made the controversial decision to remove gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-inclusive housing assignments at Grace Pearson scholarship hall.

The university website defines gender-inclusive housing assignments as "a housing option in which two or more students share a multiple-occupancy space, in mutual agreement, regardless of the students' sex, gender identity, and/or gender expression."

Now, the only scholarship hall that offers gender-inclusive housing is K.K. Amini, which costs more than Grace Pearson.

One student who protested the change was Rhoswyn Hicks, who is nonbinary and spent their time as an undergraduate living at Grace Pearson and two other scholarship halls.

"They said undergraduate housing staff and residents would be encouraged and required to report improper bathroom usage and also that improper bathroom usage could result in an incident report," Hicks said.

Students who had found a home in the communal living space started to worry about being policed, they said.

"It kind of became, like, traumatic to live in this space with all this happening," Hicks said. "I grew up with very restrictive parents who would police my identity and expression, and living in (Grace Pearson) with all the stuff with Housing happening kind of sent me back."

Hicks is now pursuing a master's of social work degree at KU. They've opted to live in an apartment within walking distance of campus.

They said they're happy with their new living arrangement - especially because now they can have a pet cat and because there's no one to enforce mandatory quiet hours like on campus.

The Star's Isabella Waters contributed reporting