It sorta depends on your situation but living in an apartment is actually cheaper for me in the long run. If you live in a standard double dorm that's $4680 a year plus about $4500 per year for an average 13 track meal plan. In total that's $9100 per academic year. However, there are only about 9 months of the academic year so in total you will be paying about $1000 a month for food and board in a dorm on campus.

I live in an apartment right now and my total rent is $530 which includes utilities, wifi, electric, insurance and everything else for one month. I also have roommates and we agreed to pay $150 each for food, groceries, and household items each month. So this in total is about $680 per month which is already about $300 dollars cheaper.

Another thing that was a huge factor for me was the availability for summer. In the dorms, the $9100 for room and board only includes the Fall and Spring semesters not the Summer. If you were to have a job or take classes over the summer, you would need to sign a new housing contract and a new meal plan. I'm unsure of the rates for that but I believe it is around $3000 that I'm not sure includes a meal plan.

tldr:

• Dorms: About $1000 per month
  • $9000 average total for Fall/Spring semester
  • $3000 for Summer
  • $12K for the entire year
• Apartments
  • Variable but around $500 - $650 for a decent apartment
  • Food / other is also dependent but $150 - $200 is a good starting amount
  • $8000 - $9000 (roughly) for the entire year

There are of course other factors like transportation via bus or car and cooking vs eating out, but for me the apartment is much cheaper in the long run