The cost of living in the United States while pursuing studies

I came across a question on Quora recently and saw an overwhelming response to my answer to it. I then got a couple of PM from prospective students and their concerns were if there were any hidden costs that they should be considering while managing the funds for their studies. And their concerns are reasonable. When you are taking a major decision of your life which can be a turning point in your career, you want to clarify every small detail before you commit to it especially when it is a matter of finance. You don’t want to be in any financial trouble once you have landed in the US.

The cost of living in the US depends on where do you live and what is your lifestyle like. It can be as low as $700/month to all the way up to $3000/month. Let’s break it down to give you a more clear idea. I will assume you live a modest life like me.

Apartment Rent — $700/month

When I was studying at USC, I was live off-campus with three other roomates in 1BHK. Yes because we didn’t want to live in separate apartments and there was no 2 or 3BHK apartment in our complex. We were too lazy to find another one. Average rent of an apartment in Los Angeles in $2000. But the rent may vary depending on the neighbourhood and facilities included in it. Some apartments have Gym, Laundary, Air Conditioning, Stove (Electric or LPG), Dish Washer, Gated Security, Parking Spot, Swimming Pool, Internet Connection, Electricity (included in the bill), Elevator, Patio, etc. If these utilities are included, the rent can go higher. Some landloard do not provide these facilities and tenants have to pay for every facility they want. We were not provided any of these so we paid for them separately. You can easily share 1BHK with one another roommate but if you want you can share with two as well as we used to use apartment only for eating, sleeping and bathing. Otherwise we used to be in Library most of the time. Sometime we even slept in Library which was open 24hrs/day. I know a close friend of mine who was sharing 1BHK with 8 other roommates. Now that too far stretched but 1BHK shared between 3 is ok :)

Electricity — $35/month

Since Electricity was not included in our Bill, we used to pay $100/month. I remember us enrolling in low-income plan which gave us benefit of lower electricity bill compared to what it would otherwise cost.

Internet — $20/month

We had 6mbps internet connection without telephone line from Time Warner. It used to cost us $60/month.

Gas — $35/month

We used to cook dinner at home daily and sometime even launch if there were no classes. Gas connection was costing us roughly $100/month.

Grocery — $200/month

Since we used to cook dinner daily, we used to go for grocey, usually, once a week and buy everything we needed for theweek. It used to cost us roughly $600/month.

Eating Out — $120/month

I used to eat out a couple of times a week at Subway, Quiznos, Chipotle, Indian Restaurant and it would cost around $5–8/meal.

Weekend Getaway — $300/month

Since you worked hard entire week, you would plan to go somewhere and explore the city. Be it an amusement park like Six Flags, or Universal Studios, Disney Land, Sea World, National Park, Las Vegas it would cost you anywhere between $200 — $1000. You would be surprised but renting a car, a car insurance, fuel, parking, flying, renting a hotel room, eating out, tickets at the venue, gambling and losing in Vegas, etc will all add up.

Let’s assume you plan one such weekend every month. Rest of the weekends you may be busy cleaning your apartment, doing your laundary and finishing the assignment who’s deadline is approaching.

Health Insurance — $1000/year

Every student is required is required to have a health insurance. You can purchase it yourself and your university may also have tie-up with some insurace companies. No matter how you get it, it would cost around $1000/year.

Misc setting up expenses — $600

There will be many expenses that you would incur when setting up your apartment for the first time and these costs could included things like…

1. Bed — $300
2. Wifi Router — $60
3. Microwave Oven — $60
4. Lamps (our apartment had not lights but just sockets. We had to purchase standing lamps from Wallmart.) — $100
5. Table Fans (our apartment had not ceiling fans. We purchsed table fans from Wallmart) — $100
6. Floor Mats — $20

Overall, it would cost around $1500/month.

Now, if you work on-campus 20hrs/week and make minimum wage — $10.50/hr in California, you can easily make $900/month. If you plan to study in any other state, you can find the minimum wage for that state here.

It’s not difficult to find on-campus job that pays higher wage as well. You just need to keep looking for different opportunities in different departments of your university. I visited every office in each and every building of our university campus and asked them if they had any part-time job for a student. If they said yes, I gave them my resume and filled up the form if there was any. If they said no, I still gave them my resume and asked them if they can contact me whenever there’s any opening for student worker. Most of them were polite enough to accept keep the resume.

I hope this gave you more clear idea on cost of living in the United States. In next article I would try to go deep into how to find on-campus job and internship in United States.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have and I would be more than happy to answer them for you.