According to Cabrini’s website, 60 percent of students live in one of the 12 residence halls on campus, aside from those in the remaining 40 percent that commute from home. Where do the other students live?
Whether it’s the Kingswood Apartments or a house in Conshohocken, the vast majority of students who are not commuting from their parent’s houses call these places home.
Some have left Cabrini’s campus to free themselves of the limitations set by public safety, the clenches of resident life or some solely because they were asked to leave due to disciplinary actions.
Living off campus can enable students to have the freedom they’ve longed for after being forced to follow the rules and regulations set in place by Cabrini. The ability to have parties, play music at whatever hour and drink or smoke at their own discretion are all factors that play a part in making living off campus seem so appetizing.
If it’s not the freedom that pushes students to switch to off campus living, it’s the price.
Living on campus costs an average of $12,026 per resident at Cabrini, while living off campus can be less than half that price depending on where the person is living.
While a portion of the saved money on living does get allocated to gas expenditures from traveling to campus, food for their kitchens and other housekeeping bills, at the end of the day, money is still being saved.
The future of off campus living for not just Cabrini, but Eastern University, Bryn Mawr College and Villanova University will be changing in the next few years.
Villanova University is proposing a $200-million dollar expansion on Lancaster Avenue that will take three to five years to complete. The expansion will entail converting the existing main parking lot into a University-operated student-centric retail, a parking garage, a Performing Arts Center and Gothic style residential housing.
The housing in question will dorm 85% of the University’s undergraduates which translates to nearly 6,000 students living on campus in comparison to the averaged 4,400 that do currently.
With such a high number of Villanova undergraduates being taken out of the surround areas real estate competition, opportunities for other school’s students to have lower living expenses and more living options is a possibility.
Like clockwork the Thorndale Paoli Line, whose tracks are laid 20 feet away from their home, shakes the building nearly every hour. The woman of the house, a chocolate labrador retriever named Abby, seems not to care about the rushing train, but does care when people approach the backyard’s white picket fence.
Less than 10 minutes from Cabrini’s campus, junior Jack Clendenny, and seniors, Charlie Paris and Christian Benson call “196” terres home.
“I can wake up, go down stairs, shower and then cook food,” Clendenny, exercise science major, said. “Drinking while doing all of that too.”
The freedom from campus seems to be the biggest plus in Clendenny’s opinion. Not having to live next to people who he’s not friends with and no longer having to tolerate other’s loud music and odd hours, that would keep him up are just some of the main positives of being at 196.
Clendenny admits though, that while he does like living off campus, nothing is perfect. Aside from having less than lenient neighbors, its not being able to see his other friends on campus that he hates the most.
“I can’t walk outside and see everybody,” Clendenny said. “I can’t just go visit so-and-so in their room anymore.”
Even though he may not be able to visit random friends peppered through campus he does acknowledge that the people he lives with are his friends—they chose each other and there is a certain level of mutual respect that comes between the three of them.
At the end of the day though, it’s all about freedom and Clendenny is more than willing to share the freedom with all his friends back on campus.
“Come through 196 every weekend,” Clendenny said. “Next week we’ll have jungle juice.”
Incense sits lit at the top of the large television in the downstairs of apartment 503a. Two scotched-taped-to-the-wall posters hang on the main room one of Beyonce and the other of a young Britney Spears. Adjacent to them is a large purple tapestry showing a full sun meeting in the middle of the sheet with a crescent moon.
“We have more freedom, it’s easier,” Emily Silva, junior education major and one half of the duo that call this Kingswood Apartment home, said.
Silva and her roommate, Alyssa Son, junior communication major, find the absence of resident assistants and the lack of drama to be a breath of fresh air.
Just over the bridge leading into Conshohocken, in walking distance to the nightlife that the town offers but far enough away to not always have to deal with it, lives Nicole Broccolino, junior criminology major, and her two roommates.
The parking is not great and the sidewalk leading up to the house is crackled and uneven, but Broccolino does not seem to care.
“This house gives me a sense of belonging here in Pennsylvania,” Broccolino, the Maryland native, said. “This place is definitely my home.”
Broccolino’s Conshohocken home also lends beds to Samantha Trumbo, senior psychology major, and Jen Bubb, nursing major from Villanova University.
Aside from the three roommates, there’s an additional female that seems to rule the roost most than any of the other occupants in the house. Nala, their soon-to-be year old cat is one of the many components that make their new house a home.
“I actually really like her,” Broccolino, the admitted once cat disliker, said.
The three girls’ kitchen has recently been put to work. While Broccolino has “tried her best” to cook, she admitted that it does not always turn out well.
“I’m still in the early stages of learning how to cook.”
Being that each of the residents have their own rooms and cars keep their privacy and ensure that “none of their schedules depend on anyone elses.”
“It’s cheaper after all is said and done,” Broccolino said, who plans to have parties in the future, depending on the neighbors.
While Broccolino does have to wake up earlier for classes than she used to, it’s the scenic 10 minute drive to campus and the freedom that will keep her off campus next year also.
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Regardless of there being no resident assistants, the two girls still do not use their apartment to party.
“There is no one who lives around here so we do not have crazy fun,” Son, who does admit a party is going to eventually happen, said. “Our neighbors are a tad crazy also.”
Aside from the “crazy” neighbors and absence of people who live around them, the duo from 503a have bigger problems that even exterminators have not been able to fix.
“They [the silverfish] run at 100 miles per hour,” Son said. “Raid [the bug spray] is bae.”
When the two are not fending off bugs or watching E! News, they’re brushing up on their cooking skills.
“We’re working on the whole cooking thing,” Silva, who has learned how to cook burgers, tacos and chicken so far, said.
While Silva cites her new comfortable bed as the reason why she misses classes, Son says she never misses classes anymore because she likes to see what’s going on at campus since she lives off of it.
When the duo does make it to school, depending on the day, the girls say it takes between seven and ten minutes to get to campus but lately it’s taken longer because of the newly established speed traps along their route.
Son and Silva will be continuing their off campus living next year when they move to Conshohocken, but for now they are more than content to call Kingswood their home.
Just over the bridge leading into Conshohocken, in walking distance to the nightlife that the town offers but far enough away to not always have to deal with it, lives Nicole Broccolino, junior criminology major, and her two roommates.
The parking is not great and the sidewalk leading up to the house is crackled and uneven, but Broccolino does not seem to care.
“This house gives me a sense of belonging here in Pennsylvania,” Broccolino, the Maryland native, said. “This place is definitely my home.”
Broccolino’s Conshohocken home also lends beds to Samantha Trumbo, senior psychology major, and Jen Bubb, nursing major from Villanova University.
Aside from the three roommates, there’s an additional female that seems to rule the roost most than any of the other occupants in the house. Nala, their soon-to-be year old cat is one of the many components that make their new house a home.
“I actually really like her,” Broccolino, the admitted once cat disliker, said.
The three girls’ kitchen has recently been put to work. While Broccolino has “tried her best” to cook, she admitted that it does not always turn out well.
“I’m still in the early stages of learning how to cook.”
Being that each of the residents have their own rooms and cars keep their privacy and ensure that “none of their schedules depend on anyone elses.”
“It’s cheaper after all is said and done,” Broccolino said, who plans to have parties in the future, depending on the neighbors.
While Broccolino does have to wake up earlier for classes than she used to, it’s the scenic 10 minute drive to campus and the freedom that will keep her off campus next year also.
