As a parent, you want to ensure the your college age student is prepared to succeed. 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 you’re 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. The student 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 roommates.
When parents get involved in the decision, particularly if two or three sets of parents are 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.
However, as a parent, it’s perfect reasonable for you to provide recommendations to your college student. If you graduated from college, you understand how overwhelming the college lifestyle can be, but if you give suggestions, instead of commands your son or daughter may be more willing to listen to what you have to say.
These are just a few things to keep in mind as your student prepares for his or her first foray into the college world. As a parent, what are some of the areas where you feel you should be making the decisions on behalf of your college student. Let us know in the comment section below.
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I actually WANT my parents help in finding the right apartment. I value their opinion and know they want the best for me. They’ve lived a lot longer than I, and will most likely make a better decision 🙂
trying to coordinate with my roommates parents was a nightmare!! we were all excited about leaving student housing on campus but trying to coordinate what everyone wanted was hard enough between the four of us without adding adults telling us the 10 million things we had to know about being off campus. like I appreciate it and it was great to have extra hands moving in but juggling all that was a lot of chaos to
I agree with Hillary. My parents have always had my back and make wise decisions based on what’s best for me. I trust them to help me choose the right apartment!
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