Living out is — you’d never guess this — the opposite of living in. It covers any option that doesn’t involve the university: renting, buying, squatting, whatever. (By the way, squatting is generally illegal and therefore a bad idea.)

As you might suppose, the proportion of students who live out varies exactly as much from university to university as the proportion who live in — after all, if they’re not in they’re out and vice versa.

But what also varies is the availability of housing, the cost , what kind there is, what standard, how close it is to anywhere useful, how safe it is, how easy it is to find and how much help the university will give you to find it.

Most universities have some kind of accommodation office to help with house-hunting and advise about landlords from hell, rooms with roaches and so on.

You’d have thought that the more difficult it is to find somewhere to live and the more students there are needing to do it, the bigger the university’s accommodation service would be. You’d have thought that but, no, some universities are far better than others on this score and the need for the service doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it.

If you’re picking a university where you’re going to have to live out for at least a year (i.e. almost any of them), it’s worth finding out whether their service consists of a dedicated team of experts with a database and legal advisors on standby, or a photocopied sheet of last year’s vacancies.

Anyhow, apart from avoiding the cons of living in , the pros of living out are:

• It’s your pad. Or more usually you’re sharing it with other students.
• Your housemates often become your best mates. You can usually choose who you want to live with, but the point’s just as true even if you don’t.
• You can do what you like when you like. Meals, for instance, aren’t served at a set time.

• It’s not really your pad. Most students rent from private landlords, which is like walking into a minefield. Dodgy geezers, unsafe electrics, crooks — you name it, it happens to students, although, fortunately, most of them do just fine. Especially if their university has a good accommodation service to back them up.
• The classic problem is getting back the deposit when you move out. The deposit is the money you put down when you move in to prove you’re going to look after the place and there are plenty of landlords who regard it as a tidy little extra that they will hang on to even if you’ve kept the place spotless (which, to be fair, most students don’t).
• Housemates often become your worst nightmare, even if you chose them (nothing splits up friendships like living together).
• It’s usually more expensive and more hassle than living in .

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