The University of Missouri Off-Campus Housing Fair has come and gone, but the pressure to find housing for next year still looms over the shoulders of students. Some are choosing another year of dorm life, others have signed an apartment lease, or rented a house and some are still undecided. With Mizzou entering its third full month of the semester, the rush to figure out where to live feels exhausting, and the rental market in Columbia does nothing to help.
Big company apartments, ones with multiple complexes in an artificial neighborhood, are predatory at best. This includes apartment companies like Central House and The Lyfe. By the time the housing fair passed, some apartments had already raised their rent for the 2026-27 leasing term by $60 from the beginning of the leasing term. This doesn’t include how much base rates increase each year. Many apartments start selling leases at higher prices once they begin to sell out, typically by an increase of $20 to $50. This continues until they sell out, or no one is buying anymore.
If students choose to wait until the housing fair to think about where they will live next year, they are already getting the short end of the stick. This baseline rent typically doesn’t include utilities, and there are often hidden fees that are not explained until after a lease has been signed. For example, if your parents don’t make enough to be a guarantor, your rent will rise. There is also renters insurance and deposits, which turn a barely affordable apartment into one that is out of budget.
This leasing season, apartments downtown charge upward of $800 per person if you are lucky. The ones right on the edge of campus, such as Element Townhomes, started at close to $1,000 per person. Off-campus housing like Central House, Grindstone Canyon, and The Den (anywhere from a 10- to 20-minute drive) likely will be a little more affordable, with prices in the $600-$700 range. However, there are outliers. There are affordable places downtown, one going for as low as $550. There is also Uplace, right on campus, with rent starting at $610, though they didn’t publicize their prices for the next year until mid-October, when many other places were already shooting upwards.
There is also another side to the hunt for housing. Many houses close to campus are rentable and affordable, a combination often unseen. However, these places are completely unfurnished, which comes as a downside to many new renters. Buying and storing furniture is likely something that has to wait until summertime. Not only has rent become unaffordable, but so has furniture, which is not guaranteed to last the whole year.
The renting conditions in Columbia are often a push and pull. You’ll have more affordable rent and a 10-minute drive, or you live close to campus, but the rent is unreasonably expensive. Either way, it seems like nowhere is perfect.
According to the Urban Institute, in the 1960s and 70s, students at an average public four year college could make enough to afford tuition, as well as most room and board charges by working 15 hours a week, all year. This sounds difficult to manage, but consider that working the same number of hours now is just barely enough for many students to live independently.
These prices can make living in a dorm an attractive option, but dorms at their cheapest barely rival how much students off campus are paying for rent. Add on a dining plan, parking and other fees Mizzou charges for dorm living, and you have a 200 square foot room that is the same price as a whole apartment (bathroom not included). This option has its obvious benefits, such as being close to campus and in a community of solely other students.
The variety of choices often leaves new renters overwhelmed and underprepared. It’s simply wishful thinking to have a navigational and affordable process for renting. The positives and drawbacks of each option make it difficult to weigh out which is best, with the overarching problem being price. It looks like now there is little to be done by Columbia renters as the problem grows more expensive every year.
Edited by Ash Merenbloom | [email protected]
Copy edited by Anna Catlett and Ava Mohror | [email protected]
Edited by Chase Pray | [email protected]
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.