General Tips:
Grads in the Geography program tend to live close to campus (though a few commute from places as far away as Battle Creek and Flint) in Apartments, houses, and on-campus housing. A few common options include:
- University apartments
- Owen Hall (for dorm-style rooms)
- Apartments close to campus (i.e., "student ghetto")
- Buying a house
- Renting a room
Housing can be affortable in Lansing or Okemos as well, so limiting your apartment search to East Lansing may not yeild you your dream apartment. The Greater Lansing area (including Lansing, South Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Williamston, and East Lansing) is served by CATA (http://www.cata.org), which runs reliable bus service on most routes.
In general, it's a good idea to live close to campus (duh!), but the closer to campus you live, the higher your rent will be (to a point, and depending on a bunch of other factors). Be careful: MSU has over 35,600 undergrads and more than half of them live off-campus, but close to school; noise can be a problem if you are in apartments very close to campus, especially near the Cedar Village area (across the street from the Geography building).
Finding Housing:
- On-Campus
Housing at MSU
Graduate student housing is either in the Graduate Student Dorm, Owen Hall, or in the University Apartment complexes of Cherry Lane (located closest to center campus), University Village (located close to the Breslin Center), and Spartan Village (located furthest from center campus, near the MSUFCU branch South of the train tracks).- Owen hall, the graduate dorm, can be good or bad depending on your suitemate. Most rooms in Owen are singles (there are doubles though), arranged in pairs which are linked with a bathroom. Needless to say, you get to know your suitemate pretty well, perhaps more than you may like. While a room in Owen hall also comes with a mandatory meal plan to the in-house cafeteria (which is actually quite good as cafeterias go), it is nearly as expensive as a single-room apartment in University Apartments. As Owen Hall is dorm-style living, the only utility bill you pay is your long-distance phone calls.
- University Apartments are a pretty good deal, but they fill up very quickly. There are a lot of options here, including furnished and unfurnished apartments, and apartments which have been updated (which cost a premium) and those that have not been updated (NOTE: check with University Housing - the entire University Apartments system is currently undergoing a significant overhaul and update). Typical units include one or two bedrooms, a combo kitchen/dining/living room, and full bathroom. Utilities are included, aside from phone, though the unit itself will determine whether internet and cable access are included or are extra-charge (this is part of the ongoing update).
- Michigan
State University Housing Cooperatives
The Student Housing Cooperative owns 12 Cooperative Houses and provides an organizational structure for its members. - SpartanSpaces
A service providing apartment searches for apartments close to campus. - allMSU
Online community with sections on apartments & housing, among other things. A great place to find a sublease. - Craigslist
for Lansing
The now-famous internet source for the informal economy. Find a sublease, room to rent, or almost anything else here! - RentinMichigan
online housing search
A new online housing search for rentals throughout Michigan. This search can find apartments and houses based on price range and location - DTN
Management Co.
East Lansing's largest, and probably most hated, management company. This website links to their properties throughout the Greater Lansing area through a google map which makes it easy to visualize where their apartments are. - State
News Apartment Classifieds
If you are looking for a sublet or to take over someone's lease this is often a great place to start looking
Finally, you could also buy a home! While the majority of grads in the program rent apartments or houses, a few have purchased homes in the Lansing/East Lansing area. While this is a big step, the market in the area is pretty reasonable, and it's possible to buy a decent starter-home for $65-75K.