Boston is a spirited city full of innovation, historical and cultural attractions, sports teams galore, and of course, college students. It is consistently ranked No. 1 in the nation for being the best college town and is one of the top cities in the world to be a student. In addition to exceeding as a place for academics, Boston also ranks No. 7 in the country for quality of life, No. 13 in safest places to live, and No. 18 in best places to live overall.
Boston is a great place to live for anyone, but especially for an 18-year-old on your own for the first time entering university. However, when you live in a city that consistently ranks high in many areas, you have to live with all the other high-ranking statistics that aren’t as favorable.
For example, Boston recently climbed its way to being the second-most expensive city in the country for renters. The median one-bedroom rent in Boston is over $3,000, with reasons pointing to Boston’s ongoing housing crisis. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $3,150, or $1,575 per person. The shortage of housing is becoming more apparent because of “prohibitive zoning laws that favor single-family homes” and new properties skewing towards the luxury market.
College students in Boston and the surrounding metropolitan area are certainly not emptying their already barren wallets to cough up that rent, even though it’s often less expensive than most university housing. Northeastern University, for example, costs $6,740 per semester for a single room in standard apartment-style housing, or about $1,685 per month. On top of the other living expenses that make Boston No. 6 in the most expensive cities in the United States, it’s hard to afford basic expenditures along with the unanticipated charges that come with being a young adult on your own.
As of January, over the last 12 months, the Consumer Price Index in the areas of Boston, Cambridge, and Newton has increased by 6.4 percent. Energy prices increased 22.8 percent and food prices increased 10.5 percent. Housing costs increased by 8.4 percent; apparel, 5.4 percent; transportation, 2.1 percent; medical care, 6.1 percent; recreation, by 3.8 percent … and the list goes on and on and on.
It may not seem like it in the day-to-day — just a couple more dollars for eggs at Trader Joe’s, a bigger chunk of your paycheck spent on a new article of clothing, or a couple more cents for a breakfast bagel at Pavement Coffeehouse — but in the long run, the cost of living in Boston is certainly not to be underestimated or ignored. On top of rising tuition costs nationwide and stagnant wages for college graduates, it’s a bleak outlook for students and graduates.