I agree that expensive off campus housing is an issue pretty much everywhere. My kid is in an old, noisy apartment in Westwood (UCLA’s neighborhood), sharing a bedroom in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other girls for $1100. Of course, UCLa guarantees housing for 4 years so that could have been an option for her, but she and her friends wanted more independence from RAs and such.)
Another thing I also see from my UCLA Parents FB group that a lot of OOS parents hold the university to a much higher standard of customer service than in-state parents (or, that should be expected from a large, public institution). I get it—forking over huge OOS fees is a lot, but sadly, it doesn’t equate to better support from the university. I think that’s a huge sticking point when deciding on an OOS public school. Go in knowing you are going to pay 3x in many cases, for what is still a huge, overburdened public institution.