On Campus Apartments

Single Housing

Housing for single students is in single rooms in an apartment or in a dorm. Housing contracts are either for the academic year ( ) or for the calendar year (). If you apply early (before) you are guaranteed a place, and you will not have to move from your room in the following years, unless your room is no longer available to graduates.  You may apply for housing at any time of the year and will be given a place depending on availablity. Your contract will be until either of the two dates give2 January, 2007then change your mind, you will have to pay for the whole summer in advance, by some date in the spring semester. If you wish to leave your apartment early you will have to pay a large fine. Check out the "Graduate Residents' Guidelines for Living On-Campus" for more details.

• Buell Apartments (Busch)
• Starkey (Cook)
• Old Gibbons(Douglass)
• Ford Hall (College Ave)
• Quad Two (Livingston)
• Rockoff Hall (George Street, New Brunswick)

Old Gibbons : Located on the Douglas Campus. Space is for single graduate women only in some of the houses at this complex. Each house has nine private bedrooms with a bathroom on each floor and a kitchen on one. Laundry facilities are available in the main recreation house.

Starkey : Located on the Cook Campus, Starkey offers apartment-style living The apartments are furnished and carpeted and are all laid out according to the same plan: there are private bedrooms for four students with a common living room, dining area, full kitchen, and a bathroom.

Buell: Same format as Starkey, though located on Busch Campus. Has a communal lounge and a room with a tabletennis table next to the laundry facilities. 12/25/2006se apartments.

Ford Hall: Located on the College Avenue Campus. Single rooms and two-bedroom apartments with living room.  Dorm-like. There are small fridges in each roomCommon bathrooms, segregated by gender. Common kitchen facility for entire building. There is a laundry room in the building as well. No air conditioning nor do they allow window units.  About 70 students live in Ford Hall.

Quad Two:  Dorm-like living space on Livingston Campus. There are single rooms witha microfridge in each room, and one bathroom on each floor. Each floor is either all-male or all-female. There are ?? four houses with 24-27 students in each house. There are two kitchens per house.?? Aroung 90 students live in here.

New Housing Option - Rockoff Hall

These apartments are still under construction so all the details of the set up are unknown.

Graduate apartments have 3 single bedrooms and a common kitchen, living room and lounge.

This building is in downtown New Brunswick, between Cook/Douglass and College Ave Campuses. The cost is much higher than other on-campus housing and will house undergraduates in most of the building. Originally 3 floors were set aside for graduates (I believe) but few graduates can afford the cost (approx $750 per month) so chances are you'll be sharing the floor with undergrads or even members of the public.

Graduate apartments have 3 single bedrooms and a common kitchen, living room and lounge. One difference from other on-campus housing is that you can apply as a group of three, if you wish to live with friends. You will in fact be given preference over individual applicants. However apartments must still be either all-male or all-female.

Family Housing

Family housing is for married couples, life partners (e.g. de facto partners or same-sex partners) and students with dependent children.  If you are life partners you will need to show some proof of your relationship such as joint bank accounts, or life insurance policies in each other's names.

The waiting list for family housing can be several months, depending on the date of occupancy and the type of apartment requested, so apply early. Tenancy is for up to five years and the prices for one and two bedroom apartments range from $321 to $483 per month, including utilities. There is ample parking for all married tenants, and all areas are serviced by campus buses.

Each apartment has a kitchen equipped with a refrigerator and stove and some also have storage areas and central air conditioning. The apartments in all of these family complexes are unfurnished.

• Johnson
  two bedroom apartments
• Russell
  some efficiency units and one- apartments, and two bedroom apartments.
• Marvin
  • two bedroom apartments
• Nichols
  • two bedroom apartments
    

Utilities

Phones

Phones are not provided in the apartments. (A pay phone will be nearby, outside the building). Each bedroom is wired separately, (and the living room?) so if you want a home phone you will probably have to pay for the full cost yourself. Many students choose to have a cell phone instead of a home phone.

RUTV

Cable TV is included in the housing costs. It provides a great selection of channels, including news, sports, movies. There are a few 'internationa'l channels, including a news channel with broadcasts in many languages, IFC, and BBCAmerica. Each bedroom and the living room has a connection. Ch 30 is a movie channel provided by Rutgers - it shows recent movies, classics & favorites. (You can vote for the movies you'd like to see on it)

RU Internet

Each room is wired for (cable?) internet. (speed?) You need to register with (RU computing) to begin service. (only registered computers will work?)

Laundry

Washing machines (washers) & drying machines (dyers) are in a laundry room either in the building, or a building nearby. They are coin operated (change machines are in the rooms) They cost: $? for one wash and $? for ? mins drying.

Cost & Payment

You can find the current year's housing fees at {??}: The next years fees (2005-2006) will be published in the Spring (late April/early May).

Single Housing:

• In advance
• 3 Payment plan
• Payroll deduction

Family Housing:

• Monthly payments by cheque to the housing office.
• Payroll deduction may become an option in the future.

Typical Off Campus Prices

• studio/ one bedroom apartment
• two bedroom apartment
• three bedroom apartment
• four bedroom apartment

Most graduate students share a house with 1-3 students. Living alone on a graduate student assistantship or fellowship can be expensive. Salaries will vary between departments, but many grad students receive the mimimum salary of around $17,000 (before tax).  Remember that you may have to pay water, gas/heat, electricity, phone and internet on top of the rental price. Expect to pay up to $550-$650 total for a room in a nice house. If you are willing to live in a less nice neighbourhood, a more run-down house,  or share a bedroom (advertised as a 'double') you may find something much cheaper.

Cost and Payment

You will often have to pay 1.5 months rent as a security deposit (bond) and 1 months rent in advance. You will probably have to pay a portion of this when you first sign the agreement.

Rent is usually paid monthly and is due a specific date each month (often the first). If you are living in a private house and dealing directly with a landlord/lady you will usually pay with a cheque or cash. Online or automatic bank payment of rent does not seem to be very common here.

When to start looking for an apartment

You should start looking for a place six weeks before you want to move in, and try to have something settled by at least two weeks beforehand.

Where to look for an apartment or roomate

• start with the Rutgers off campus housing page
• sign up to the ISFA list and check out the ads and post an ad yourself
• Check for advertisements in the Targum (the Rutgers student newspaper), and on notice boards around the campus.
• Apartment Search Websites. These are apartments in a large apartment block or complex, and are typically more expensive than privatally-owned apartments..
  • Apartments.com
  • ForRent.com
  • Rent.com

Types of Housing Available

• Apartment in an apartment block or complex
• Part of a larger house (often one floor or one side of a two story house). Most houses in the area are two story and split into two or three separate homes.
• A room in a house or apartment that already has people living in it.

UTILITIES & SERVICES

Phone Companies

• Verizon
• AT&T
• Sprint
• T-Mobile
• Cingular
• Vonage ¶

TV

• Cablevision (Basic Cable) & Io (High??)
• DirectTV (Satellite)

Internet

• Verizon (DSL)
• Cablevision (Cable)
• AOL (dialup)

Gas and Electricity

• >>link to Rutgers off-campus housing site for more info
• PSEG - New Jersey Gas & Electric Services

LOCATIONS OFF-CAMPUS

Towns & Cities

Rutgers is located in Middlesex County is New Jersey. The County is divided into smaller boroughs, towns and cities. Cook Campus, Douglass Campus, Mason Gross School of the Arts and College Avenue are located in New Brunswick, while Busch and Livingston campuses are in Piscataway.

There are often no obvious boundaries between the different towns, as you can see from any map of the area (link). Basically New Brunswick is on the southern edge of the urban sprawl that extends from New York City. Further south New Jersey is more rural with towns (such as Princeton) separated by areas of farmland. The coast (known as "The Jersey Shore" or just "The Shore") is lined with touristy and holiday towns, such as Atlantic City and Ocean City.

New Jersey is densely populated and traffic is often slow at peak times. There are local buses, but are not that frequent and do not run very late (or on Sundays???).  Trains run from Trenton, through Princeton, New Brunswick and up through to New York.  Most students choose to live on or nearby campus, especially if they do not have a car, rather than rely on public transport.

Highland Park

Highland Park is the most popular choice of location for graduate students living off campus. It is a residental area with local families, grad students and faculty living in the area. It has a main road with a small selection of shops & restuarants, and medium sized grocery store. There is a large orthodox Jewish population in Highland Park so many of the shops and restaurants sell Kosher foods.

It is 5 -20 minutes walk to the River Road bus stop [put a link] on the campus bus route. It takes 10-25 minutes to walk across the bridge to downtown New Brunswick and another 5 will get you to the edge of the College Ave Campus. 

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is a small city with a bit of a more urban neighborhood feel. It is more economically, racially, and ethnically diverse than Highland Park,with a large Spanish-speaking population. It offers a wider range of housing prices and options. New Brunswick has the advantage of rent control. Its main drawback is its lack of a good supermarket within walking distance. Many undergraduates live in an area near the fraternities and bars on Easton Avenue. If you're looking for a quieter neighborhood, try the area by the Alexander Library and Buccleuch Park by the College Avenue campus, or within a block or so of the Douglas College campus. Street parking in New Brunswick can be relatively tight in some areas and you will need to get a free resident parking sticker from the city. Rutgers campus buses provide transportation between the various different campuses and have multiple stops in New Brunswick.

Piscataway, Somerset, North Brunswick

These towns are mostly residential, and are a 10-20 minute commute by car to campus. Rents vary, though are mostly on par with New Brunswick or even a bit lower.

Metuchen, Edison

These towns are accessible by New Jersey Transit trains. They are very similar to Highland Park, with comparable rents.

Princeton

Half an hour away by car or train, 50 minutes by bus. Princeton is a quiet, residential town with a large town center with mostly upscale shop and restaurants. It is one of the wealthiest regions in New Jersey and prices and correspondingly high. It is home to Princeton University.

Hoboken and Jersey City

Both have the advantage of being just across the river from Manhattan, and both are accessible to New Brunswick by train (NJ Transit and PATH). Commuting time to campus is about an hour. Hoboken is more expensive and more gentrified than Highland Park or New Brunswick. Jersey City is a little bit less expensive than Hoboken and rents can be comparable to Highland Park.

New York or Philadelphia

If you must live in a big city, New York is an hour away by train or bus; Philadelphia is an hour and a half to two hours by train. New York is very expensive; Philadelphia is relatively cheap. If you are considering living in either city, let me know, and I'll try to put you in contact with students currently living there. Uptown Manhattan has a few affordable neighborhoods, as do sections of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens.

Local Town Websites

• New Brunswick
• Highland Park
• Piscataway

Local Apartments

Highland Park

• studio/one bedroom = $650-$900
• two-bedroom apartments = $900-$1100
• three-bedroom = $1300-$1500

Adelaide Gardens 100 S. Adelaide Avenue 247-0614
Benner House Apartments 117 Benner Street 846-3574
Cedar Lane 100 Cedar Lane 846-0806
Donaldson Park Apartments 321-A Crowells Road 572-1326
Highland Manor Apartments 409 S. 10th Avenue 572-0253
Highland Montgomery Apts. 140 Montgomery Street 828-7993
Magnolia Gardens 60B Woodbridge Avenue 572-3636
Orchard Gardens 260 S. 11th Street 985-6886
Parktown House Apts. 11 Raritan Avenue 846-4260
Treetops Apartments 250 Treetop Drive 846-0400
Wood Oak Co. S. 2nd Avenue 828-4665

New Brunswick
Birchwood Terrace Apartments 272 Hamilton Street 828-5607
Brunswick Arms Apts. 119 Livingston Ave. 249-4748
Century Apartments 85 Easton Avenue 249-5545
G & A Brookside Apartments 55 Brookside Avenue 246-0446
Park Lane Apartments 10 Landing Lane 249-6662
Penrose Management Co. 217 Somerset Street 828-4083

Advantages to living on-campus

• Don't have to pay a security deposit (called a "bond" in other countries)
• Don't have to worry about transport to campus
• Heat, gas, electricity, water, Cable TV and internet are all included, so don't have to pay lots of separate bills. Also, these companies will usually require a deposit if you are new to the USA and do not have a credit history. (However you don't get the opportunity to build up a credit history by paying those bills).
• Don't have to pass a credit check which some off-campus apartments require
• All apartments and dorms are fully furnished.
• Lots of storage space (in the apartments)
• Can get your housing paid directly from your Rutgers paycheck
• Can be cheaper than a nice place off-campus

Disadvantages to living on-campus

• No decent supermarket nearby, if you don't have a car
• Don't get to choose your roomates. (though you can request to move to a specific room later if you know one is available)
• Don't get to choose where you are placed, and have to pay a $500 cancellation fee if you don't like your placement and want to live off-campus instead. If you want to stay on campus, you have to put in an application to transfer, and wait until another room is available, which maybe some time.
• Have to endure unannounced fire inspections by staff of the whole apartment, inlcuding of your bedroom (You're not allowed candles, among other things).
• Have to endure cleaning inspections, and may be fined if you (or your roomates) do not clean to the required standards.
• Have to either pay the entire semester up front, or have it deducted from your paycheck over 10 weeks each semester. This usually leaves you will little money left during those 20 weeks each year (but if you're on an annual contract, you'll have nothing deducted over the whole summer which is nice). If you are on an academic contract but you decide to stay over summer, you have to pay the entire summer's rent beforehand.
• Price is higher than you'd expect for university-run student housing, and yearly increases can be large (9% in 2003-2004). The prices for the next year are not published until well after applications are due.
• Be aware that even an apartment may not be run as a group household. Many students live completely separate lives from their roomates and do not share food, cooking or even plates and kitchen utensils. If you prefer a more communal living arrangement, you will probably want the freedom to choose your own roomates and live off-campus.

Overall, living on-campus is a good choice for your first year, when you will have many other things to worry about and to get used to. Living on campus means you don't have to deal with a lot of things like finding roomates, a house, furniture, and getting utilities put on. It can cost a lot to get set up off-campus, and while you will get some deposits back after 6 months or so, living on-campus considerable reduces your initial expenses. Once you have been here a year, you will be able to decide for yourself whether on-campus or off-campus is best for you.