The 10 College Towns Where It's Most Expensive To Live Off-Campus

Moving to college is pricey, to say the least. There are books to buy, classes to pay for and housing costs to cover (not to mention outfitting the new space once you arrive).

But if you're planning to enroll at one of these 10 colleges, prepare for rent to be HIGH.

Real estate site RadPad recently analyzed hundreds of top colleges on the cost of living in off-campus rentals. RadPad compared monthly prices for more than 54,000 2-bedroom units within a mile of campuses that were listed for rent on their site, and compared them with campus housing costs for 2015-2016 from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Unsurprisingly, campuses in California and New York tend to have the highest rent in units around campus. The 10 most expensive places to rent include:

10. Baruch College, New York, New York: $3,895 per month for a 2-BR apartment

9. Cooper Union, New York, New York: $3,895 per month for a 2-BR apartment

8. Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey: $3,900 per month for a 2-BR apartment

7. NYU, New York, New York: $3,999 per month for a 2-BR apartment

6. Hunter College, New York, New York: $4,000 per month for a 2-BR apartment

5. Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California: $4,097 per month for a 2-BR apartment

4. George Washington University, Washington D.C.: $4,100 per month for a 2-BR apartment

3. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California: $4,100 per month for a 2-BR apartment

2. UCLA, Los Angeles, California: $4,607 per month for a 2-BR apartment

1. Stanford University, Palo Alto, California: $5,165 per month for a 2-BR apartment

Of course, there are many cases in which living in a dorm is more cost-effective than renting in your campus neighborhood. It's important to weigh the options before making your college housing choice, to make sure that dorm life (or not) is right for you.

To get started, check out the rest of RadPad's off-campus housing estimates. See a larger version here.