College Students Try to Make Ends Meet in the Country’s Most Expensive Housing Area
John Palminteri
ISLA VISTA, Calif. (KEYT) – It may be the beach location, or the demand for rooms, but housing prices in the Santa Barbara top a new list of expensive college towns in America.
It was put out by Redfin.com.
Specifically in Isla Vista, thousands of students cram themselves into a small community. Some homes on Del Playa Drive overlooking the Pacific Ocean with 40-foot bluffs, have in excess of 40 beds.
The housing price on average for the Santa Barbara South Coast is valued at about $2-million.
UC Santa Barbara nearby has a rotating population of about 25,000 students looking for a place to live either in college dorms or off campus housing. It has put a strain on the nearby community of Goleta. Also, campus leaders have been working on large dorm plans, some that have had hours of discussion and pushback from people critical of the design ideas.
Redfin says next in line is Boca Raton, FL, home to Florida Atlantic University. It has over 30,000 students, and has a median home-sale price of more than $820,000.
These costs translate down to rent costs.
“Home prices–and, by extension, rent–in some college towns have climbed so high they’re increasingly out of reach for students, faculty and staff,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “In a place like Santa Barbara or Flagstaff, high housing costs may push faculty and staff to live far from campus, and it also deters some professors from teaching there altogether. For students, high costs may mean they have to take on more debt and/or live far from campus.”
On the flip side, the study shows the least expensive college town in the U.S. is Dayton, OH, home to two major schools: Wright State University and the University of Dayton. Dayton’s median home-sale price is roughly $137,000, making it not only the cheapest college town to buy a home, but one of the cheapest places to buy a home in the U.S.
In Isla Vista UCSB student Ajah Butler has housing without a burden, but says, “I have a friend who got a housing contract last minute and if she didn’t get the housing contract I don’t know, she would have probably been homeless.”
A former student Seth Husselstein, “I have a hard time focusing in general, so when you have a roommate playing “league” at 3 in the morning you’re trying to cram an econ assignment, you’re trying to knock that out sitting there you can’t focus, you hear screaming and yelling.”
A mom who has three teens ages 17, 18, 19 says, “I have never seen like this for young adults. I actually think this something that they often think about they often feel like they don’t experience the same things at home that they would on their own but that’s really not an option for them in this town,” said Laura Costilla.
One luxury we’re told, for a student in a house of seven, is paying about $1500 a month for her own room. “But is just a little cube but it is just my bed and I have a little walking route around my bed but it’s worth it.”
Redfin research:
Most Expensive College Towns, By Median Home-Sale Price (2025)
Town
Notable college
Median home-sale price
Median home-sale price, YoY growth
Santa Barbara, CA
University of California, Santa Barbara
$1,964,170
4%
Boca Raton, FL
Florida Atlantic University
$822,701
9.3%
Flagstaff, AZ
Northern Arizona University
$695,902
6.3%
Corvallis, OR
Oregon State University
$568,507
2.1%
Orem, UT
Utah Valley University
$517,224
6.8%
Eugene, OR
University of Oregon
$501,571
1.7%
Provo, UT
Brigham Young University
$474,745
7.9%
Ann Arbor, MI
University of Michigan
$464,495
-3.4%
Manchester, NH
University of New Hampshire, Manchester and Southern New Hampshire University
$456,096
6.9%
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