GoldenDragonArms

Well I've decided to stay with my mother and grandmother for the 1st semester of my graduate program. Many of you saying I should at least attempt to live with my Mother and Grandmother for a short period makes a lot of sense, and my father also brought up this point himself. Ideally I'll keep living at my Grandmother's house for the first 2 or so years of the program. I expect I'll probably have to move close to campus in my last year of the program, as I'll be doing internships, exams, hands on training for the program (as opposed to primarily taking classes for the first two years). But at least this way I can save around $8,000 - $10,000 (based on paying rent from $500-$600 per month) in loan debt (actually saving a bit more if you factor in interest rates in repayment). My dad and mom are paying for everything besides my loans for tuiton, school fees, and books. I'm hoping I'll find that this living situation works out. I know I'll have enough gas to drive to the school 6 days a week if need be. The real problem will be having to stay on campus for so long (pretty much all day long if I want to make meetings, study groups, social activities) and not having a place to crash and relax until I drive back home late at night. I'm hoping I can find a chill place to relax during the day at some points, whether that be the library, some public place that doesn't mind extended visitors, or if I'm lucky I might be able to work out an agreement with a friend I meet there so I can chill for 1 or 2 hours at their place during school days to take a breather (that would make a huge difference!).

You bring up a very good point, the more people I live with the greater the possibility I will run into living situation problems. There's a trade off there as well though for having just one other roommate. If I only have one roommate, looking at the average costs for the area, I'd be paying between $600 and $700 per month (compared with around $400 for rooming with 2-3 other people). Yeah the key here is who my roommates are, you are right. I lived in a place for the last summer of undergrad off campus with three other guys, it was quiet most of the time but some nights it was terrible if one of them decided they wanted to throw a party. And yeah they did not like to wash their dishes either, or clean for that matter. I'm not committing to anything until I've met who I'll be living with (a lot of the 4 room units I've contacted don't even know who the other residents are yet). I'll type up some agreement that we can sign so they can agree not to disturb me with loud noise, and if they did it would be a violation of the contract. I'm leaning towards just getting an apartment at this point (if I can find reasonable roommates), even though it means I have to take more loans out to make housing payments. I think its really inconvenient to be located far off campus, to have to drive home late at night every school-night, and not have a place to relax/cook and eat while I'm at the university all day. I'd just have to deal with the loans after I graduate. Worse case senario I'd have to work off the debt for a few years and then apply to phD programs, best case senario I start a fully funded phD program right after grad school and I'm able to delay loan payments until phD completion. I'm on the lookout for a 2 room housing option that is closer in price to that of a 4 room option (around $400), haven't found any yet. Again thank you for your replies.

juilletmercredi I posted my calculations based on $600 per month below. actually most of the housing options in the area range around $400-$650, depending on how you want to live. Living in a unit with 3 other people (seperate rooms), the rent is usually somewhere in the $400's. Here's an example of someone I've been in contact with that has the cheapest housing option I've seen so far. Its $385 per month with all utilities included, with washer, dryer, internet as well. 4 bedroom set up. Keep in mind I don't know what the condition of the unit is, what the complex is like, or what the roommates are like yet, those are all significant factors I need to investigate still $385 per month Lease from August 2014 to July 2015 August - July = 12 months exactly $385 x 12 = $4,620 $9,240 for 2 leases total (School time: 2 years + 4 Summer Sessions) + $25,500 (school loan for school fees for that same ammount of time) = $34,740 of debt at the end of program (compared with $40,500 of debt based on $600 per month rent) (compared with $25,500 of debt based on no rent paid living with grandmother) * keep in mind 2 summer session = 12 credits, so 4 summer sessions = 24 credits (same ammount of credits taken in 1 full school year)* Normal Expenses Calculated below for both scenarios (Living with family and living alone). TOTAL EXENSES FOR LOANS $ 27,000 of loans if paying for housing for 2 year [Housing Loan: $600 per month, $2,400 per Semester, $4,800 per year] [school Fees Loan: $4,250 per semester, $8,500 per year] $ 31,440 of loans if paying for housing for 2 years +2 summer sessions (Min time to graduate) $40,500 of loans if paying for housing for 3 years (projected time to graduate) TOTAL EXPENSES WITHOUT HOUSING LOANS $17,000 for 2 years $21,250 for 2yrs + 2SS (Min time to graduate) $25,500 for 3 years (Projected time to graduate) [Housing for 2 years (2 sumer sessions included) = $10,800] [Housing for 3 years = $15,000] I'll ideally be working a part time job during my first year of grad school. Keep in mind this will probably be somewhere near a min wage salary probably.

Again thank you guys for all of the answers so far. I just redid all of the caculculations (this time based on finishing the program in 2 years instead of 3 years), and here is what I came up with: Loan debt (living in apartment near campus): $33,250.00 Loan debt (living with grandmother and mother): $21,250.00 So I would save $12,000 (the cost of housing for the whole grad school program, based on $600 per month) in student loan debt by living with family. Do you think this is a significant enough difference to warrant staying at with family for the whole program? -- Want to note that I'll hopefully have some kind of part time job for at least the first year of the program where I'm not doing internships and just taking classes. So that will hopefully lower the total loan debt if I contribute my earnings to paying the debt off..

Thanks for all the replies so far! I'll add some more details based on the questions I've seen so far. So from the University to my grandmother's house, its is 35 miles (48 minute drive). From the University to my father's house (current place of residence), it is 53 miles (1hr 20 min drive). I already decided that I won't be living in my current place of residence for grad school, even if my dad was still willing to pay for gas $ to make that long commute. My house is very noisy for much of the day because I have young siblings (5 and 7 years of age), and my stepmother's parents are coming to live here too soon, so I feel like my house would be overcrowded/noisy and not suitable to study in. My grandmother's house is actually smaller than my own, but less crowded being its only my grandmother and mother living there ( as opposed to dad, stepmother, brother, sister, stepmother's father, stepmother's mother living in my current place of residence). I'd say that her house never gets noisy, its not like my mom has loud parties in such a small house haha. I'd say the most noise they ever make is watching tv at night, but they both go to bed really early (at least compared to my family in my father's house, they tend to go to bed later and make more noise). I'd say I have a good relationship with my grandmother and mother. I've never really lived with my mother for a long period of time (except when I was a baby I suppose), but I have spent some childhood summers at my grandmother's house so I know what its like to live there (albeit that was living with my grandmother and grandfather when he was still alive). So not having a good relationship with them is not really a factor. What really is more of a factor is the distance. Comuting to and from the school soley for attending classes isn't too bad. But for anything else, I think that distance can become a hinderance if I have to go to campus for any other reason (meeting with professors, meeting with other grad students for social gatherings, other things). I suppose I could just leave for campus early in the morning and simply stay there throughout the day until class starts, but that also holds its own inconvience being I wouldn't have a place of residence to go back to unless I drove back. Yes I do have a car. It has close to 200,000 miles on it and has had to undergo some serious maitenence lately. It is an old car and has had some problems in the past, so this is somewhat of a factor as well, driving it so often might lead to complications, but I won't be sure unless they actually happen. Before this year, the car had been doing very well (dad had it for about 4 years, gave it to me when I was in college). I looked at all of the times for the classes held for my graduate school, and for some reason, they all range from 5pm - 9pm at night (not including classes that don't have times listed yet). This means that since almost all the classes are at the same time, I will basically take 4 classes (max credit load 12 hours), on 4 different days of the week, all bsically at the same time of day. This means that I would probably be somewhat tired driving back to my grandmother's house every night, but it's still doable I guess. It would be better to just be able to bike back to the dorm and sleep after that, so that's another perk to living close to campus. Oh and the field that my master's degree is in.. People who obtain this degree, the mean salary reported for them is around $40,000 , so no, I wouldn't be able to pay off loans quickly with that sort of salary. I want to obtain my phD in Clinical Psychology. You have to complete 60 credits to complete the program. My advisor gave me an info sheet that stated that most student in the program take three years to complete it. I did the calculations myself after that though. I could potentially complete the program in May 2016, so that's about 1 year and 9 months to complete the program if I take a full credit hour load during the fall and spring semester, and also take two summer sessions of full credit loads back to back in summer 2015. Yes, I do understand the point that Rising Star made, it would be better finish it in this ammount of time and save some money in the long run. I'm not sure how much financial assistane clinical psychology phD programs typically give their students, I will start investigating that. My aim really is to get into a Clinical Psychology phD program as soon as I can, hopefully applying and getting accepted during my last year in grad school. I don't want to be in a situation where I'll have to work a few years with my master's to pay off a lot of debt (especially considering the field of my master's degree is not very well paid field in general), so hopefully I can somehow defer my graduate loans payments longer by being a phD student soon after I graduate from my master's program. I guess I should ask a question for you guys too, if you went to/are attending grad school and lived on your own, how did you pay for housing (Parents paid, you paid with saved $, took out a loan)?

So I'm trying to decide what to do here. I'm scheduled to start graduate school in late August of this year, and I'm trying to figure out my housing situation. I'm going to a school that is about 30 miles away from my grandmother's house (mother lives there as well) (school is 60 miles from my current residence with my father), so I could stay with her and commute to school. This seems like it would be the smartest thing to do, as this would allow me to save lots of money (no housing costs, maybe pay for some of the food? and gas to commute there would be about $1,800 per school year or $5,400 for 3 years for the grad program). My other option is to live by myself near the school in an apartment. This is what I want to do, as living alone as an undergrad has really made me value having your own room and having much more freedom to do things. It's also close to school, so this makes it very convinient for social gatherings, meeting with professors, going to class. The only bad thing about this option is I would have to take a loan to cover the housing expenses. I'm already taking a loan to pay for all of my school expenses (would be about $25,000 in school fees after completing program in 3 years, which is the average time the school says it takes for a grad student to get through the program) , so taking another loan for housing would lead me to accumulate a lot more debt (with rent calculations for 3 years = $14,400. So it would be $25,000 [school fees] + $14,400 [housing] = $39,400.00 of debt after 3 years). For some extra details to my situation, I currently have $0.00 in debt from undergrad, I was extremely fortunate my father paid for my school with savings he had accumulated since I was born. Both he and my mother (divorced when I was very young) are in a situation where they can not pay for much. I have brought this situation up to both of them, and I have discovered that in a situation where I am living on my own near the school, my mom agreed to pay for the food, and my dad pays for my cellphone bill, health insurance, car problems, and gasoline. In a situation where I would live with my mother and grandmother and commute to school, everything but school expenses would be paid for. I'm also planning on persuing a phD or PsyD after this graduate program. I didn't have the credentials to apply strait to a doctoral level program from undergrad. So what is your opinion? Is it worth it having $14,400 more in debt to be independent and live on your own? (this $14,400 is basically the cheapest housing option in the area, living with 3 other guys with seperate rooms and bathrooms in an apartment complex).