My point was that the currently available rentals, some on campus and some off campus, are priced for students from families where the cost of rentals is considerably higher than those around Binghamton or west of Binghamton. The students don’t necessarily have expensive cars or even come from wealthy homes but it seems as if the expectation that they are wealthy factors into the price.
A rental near the university that is promoted by the university advertises for about $930/2 bedrooms. But, that is $930 for each bedroom in a 2 bedroom apartment. So it is $1800/month for the 2 bedroom apartment. People from more costly areas should know that you could rent an entire nice house in Vestal for that. For example, there is a nice 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home (3,136 sqft) being offered for $1,700/month. It is in the stair track-Salem Dr, Vestal, NY -which is very close and where many university staff and faculty live. Unlike the apartments, it does not include utilities.
But instead of paying $930 each, students could pay about $600 each which would leave quite a bit to cover utilities. And since that house is being offered by a rental agency, it is higher than most house rentals in the area. Point is that you can really lower costs and still find housing in a decent area.
So if the OP wanted to lower costs the OP could opt out of what are, relative to the area, greatly inflated prices, and find a nice place for much less.
One might expect housing costs to be related to the cost of the land on which the housing is built. The land around that area is very inexpensive-probably among the lowest in the country.