What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a car in college?
Whats a rough estimate of percentage of people at your college have cars (I'm thinking this will vary from college to college)?
Cons: If you have to pay $130 a quarter for parking, and maintenance is expensive.. plus over the course of 4-5 years your car is gonna be that much older. Then when you really need your car it needs an expensive repair that messes up your budget. XD
Of course, those problems are often problems outside of college too
Pros: More internship opportunities (you can go were the buses don't), shorter travel time (don't need to wait for the bus), don't have to ride with crazy people, generally nice if you live off campus.
Cons: expensive (repairs, maintenance, gas), depending on where you live it can be hard to park, need to buy spaces (sometimes) or only one person in an apartment can have a car, during the school year the car can do a lot of sitting
It really depends on where you go to college. You'd probably never need one at NYU, but they can be vital at some of the more sprawling state schools, e.g.
Pros: More job opportunities as said above, no need to be stuck on your bus/metro's schedule, you can go anywhere, and of course you get to experience one of life's greatest joys: going for recreational drives.
Cons: Parking can be pricey, you might end up being the metaphorical taxi driver or rental agency for your friends.
Cons: The price. Gas, insurance, and parking add up to be a lot for only mild usage. Parking is like $600 a year here and I'd only use my car on the weekends, so it's a lot of money for such little use.
I'd say most sophomores, juniors, and seniors have cars. Most upperclassmen live off of campus though. Probably between 25 and 50% of freshmen have cars. Just taking very non random samples from my hallway... In each suite, I think there was at least one person who had a car and sometimes two people did. So that works out to be 1-2 people out of 4.
