Flexible Rent Options Help Students With Budget Planning For On-Campus Housing
Online calculators are useful and popular resources for all sorts of life planning. Successful college budgeting relies on the most clear picture of costs, and one of the most significant costs that students have to consider is housing. At Columbia Student Housing, there’s a special housing budget planner that helps students calculate different monthly payment options to see how they may lower their monthly student housing rent.
Click here for the CSH FlexRent Monthly Rent Planner
There are a few options for students considering on-campus housing while attending Columbia College, part of the Yosemite Community College District in Sonora, California. All of the school semester-based student housing options feature shared rooms and single rooms, as well as two types of rental leases: Pre-Paid and Monthly. Conveniently, all payments are made online, and monthly payments are automatic. Automated online monthly payment is another convenient feature busy students can rely on.
Two Types of Student Housing Leases
Pre-Paid leases are rental leases that are paid in full, in one discounted payment upfront, for the entire semester.
Monthly leases are rental leases that are paid monthly beginning just before the planned move-in date and continuing until just before the scheduled end of semester.
Ways To Reduce Monthly Rent
While the lease price is fixed, residents can reduce their monthly rent in a couple of ways, including a single upfront payment subtracted from the lease price, and smaller payments spread over more months.
Here’s a look at these two ways to lower monthly student housing costs.
Upfront Payment
Sometimes referred to as a down payment, it’s when a single upfront payment is made, and subtracted from the total cost of a lease. Common sources of money for upfront payments can be a student’s savings, a financial gift from a family member, or a grant from an organization supporting students of higher education.
How Upfront Payment Works
Say a lease is $2000 for 10 months, that’s $200 per month. If an upfront payment of $1000 is made, that’s subtracted from the lease price and leaves $1000 to be paid over the 10 months of the lease, cutting monthly rent payments in half from $200 per month, to $100 per month. Click here to give this a try.
Spreading Payments
Sometimes referred to as advance payments, this method of reducing monthly rent simply spreads the rent over more months. This method of monthly rent reduction is very effective for longer school terms, such as Fall+Spring semester and an entire School Year. Spreading payments over more months involves beginning monthly rent payments at least one month prior to the scheduled start of regular monthly rent payments.
How Spreading Payments Works
Let’s take the example of $2000 for 10 months ($200 per month) from above. If the regular payments are begun 4 months in advance, that’s spreading the total lease price of $2000 over four more months – 14 months total – reducing the monthly rent by almost $60. The lease price of $2000 is divided by 14 instead of only 10, reducing monthly rent to just under $143 per month, or about $57 less per month. Imagine having extra money to add to the food budget, grocery budget, or entertainment budget. Click here to see how spreading payments can reduce monthly rent.
Combine Both Payment Methods For Maximum Budgeting Flexibility
Choosing to make an upfront payment and then spreading the remainder over more months combines both options into the most powerful and effective way to reduce monthly student housing rent. College campus housing residents now have three flexible ways to reduce monthly rent. See how to combine both monthly rent reduction methods into a powerful budgeting solution.
Simply Powerful: FlexRent Brings It All Together With More Special Features
More than a simple rent calculator, the Columbia Student Housing FlexRent Monthly Rent Planner provides features to help calculate, evaluate, and save options, as well as links to the online housing application with FlexRent selections pre-filled for a faster, more streamlined application process.
- Active Housing Options
FlexRent combines current school semesters, room types, and their respective leases taken in real time from the live housing options database that feeds the live online housing application and feeds the online rental agreement for up-to-date housing availability and pricing. - Spread over more months
Select a date and click to automagically calculate the monthly rent reduction - Upfront payment
Enter a dollar amount and click to calculate the reduced monthly rent - Combine Both Methods
Enter an upfront payment amount, then select a pre-payment start date, and click to calculate rent based on both methods of reducing monthly rent. - Smart Button: Click To Apply
At any point in your FlexRent journey, you can click an Apply Now button that will pre-fill your housing application with the school semester and room type you’ve selected, saving a step in the application for housing process. - Save and Send
Want to save your research? Good idea! You can choose to have your FlexRent selections emailed to you and sent to your cell phone. You may even choose to have your FlexRent selections sent to the CSH Director of Housing. If you want to have a conversation with the Housing Director, both both you and them can have the same information right at your fingertips. These options are offered as a convenience; you’re not committing to any financial agreements.
Committed To Providing You Resources To Help Plan College Life College life planning can have a lot of moving parts. Budgeting for student housing is a major part of planning for campus life, and Columbia Student Housing provides FlexRent to help support you in that process.