Do College Students Need Cars?

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Mar 13, 2007

Should college students own cars, or explore other alternatives? Here's some thoughts on the matter:

College Students and Cars

And here's some advice: students, if you can get away with not having a car, do it. You'll save quite a bit of money, especially when it comes to car insurance, which is plenty expensive for college students. With rising tuition costs, students are graduating with crippling levels of debt. Living without a car will keep your debt more manageable.

On some campuses, having a car is a terrible hassle. Parking can be a nightmare, and expensive as well. I know college students sometimes figure in the price of parking tickets into their budgets ahead of time, because they know illegal campus parking will be a necessity if they're running late. And if you live in the dorms, the parking situation may be even worse. When I was an undergraduate at Rutgers, dorm residents with cars had to park them on Livingston Campus, which was in another town! You had a take a twenty minute bus ride just to get to your car. At that point, is it really worth it?

Some campuses and college towns offer better public transit than others. If it's available and reliable, why not try it out? Public transit gets a bad rap in the United States, where we're all so car obsessed, and that's a shame. I remember riding the bus through Minneapolis once when I was a grad student, and a group of brand new freshmen got on the bus, presumably to explore downtown. One of the girls looked terrified, and she mustered up all of her courage to ask if she could sit next to me, which of course was an unnecessary request. It was cute, but sad. What was she so afraid of?

Two other great alternatives are walking and biking. What better way to work exercise into your busy schedule? You might consider walking or biking as a secondary form of transportation even if you have a car.

Young people are so excited about owning cars. But think of it this way. You have your whole life to deal with car payments, car insurance, maintenance, parking, traffic, and all the annoying hassles that come with owning a car. If you can get by without one, why not do it?