While many ISU students search for affordable housing in Ames, others have decided to live outside in the city in surrounding areas.

Brandi Herman, sophomore in animal science, moved to Cambridge last October.

“I called around to some places in Ames but I didn’t even bother to go look because they were so much more high priced and I didn’t think I would have a good selection considering the time of year it was,” she said.

Herman’s decision to live outside of Ames is becoming a common alternative to ISU students, said Robert Bergman.

Bergman, research analyst for the Office of Institutional Research, said about 1,100 students live in Story County communities outside Ames- including Boone, Cambridge, Huxley and Slater.

Bergman said the university has been monitoring the number of students who commute since 1992.

In 1992, 11.4 percent of ISU students – graduates and undergraduates – lived outside Ames during the academic year. In the fall of 2001, that number was up to 16.3 percent.

“We have had an increase in the percentage of [students] who have an in-session address outside of Ames,” Bergman said. “I don’t know the reason.”

Part of the recent migration from Ames could be caused by high rents in Ames or less rental space for the record number of ISU students. Also, students facing a tuition hike may have less money to spend on housing.

Cambridge Apartments, Cambridge, charges $450 per month for a two-bedroom apartment with all utilities except phone. Prairie Meadows Apartments, Huxley and Slater, a two-bedroom is $530, including water and garbage. Greenway Apartments, Boone, rents two-bedroom apartment with water and garbage for $490.

Jim Hennager, landlord for Cambridge Apartments, converted an old elementary school into an apartment building.

“Our mission is to provide affordable housing in the area,” Hennager said. “Just recently I switched over to more students. But I’d say about a third of my renters over the years have been students.”

A quieter lifestyle may also motivate students to move away from Ames.

Stacy Ryan, who graduated in civil engineering in December, and her husband moved to Huxley after they got married last summer.

“It’s just relaxing,” Ryan said. “It’s a lot quieter when you get outside of town.”

Pam Klaassen, manager of Prairie Meadows Apartments in Slater and Huxley, said she gets calls from students who want to get away from the noise in Ames.

Many students and landlords also said the available space inside and outside the apartment is greater than in Ames.

“We have a garden here and in the spring we put out a sheet and people sign up if they would like a piece of the garden,” Klaassen said. “That’s not something you always get in apartments.”

Robin Borton, resident manager of Greenway apartments, said they try to appeal to graduate students or people who do not want to live with crowds and noise common in college towns.

“We’re looking for the ones that have had it with the college experience, or weren’t here for the college experience in the first place, just the college,” Borton said.

The quieter atmosphere and lower rents do come with one problem – time and money spent on the commute to class.

Emily Gibbs, senior in biology, said she pays “quite a bit a week in gas” to drive in from Slater.

If the average student in a surrounding town drives 13 miles one way, they drive 26 miles round-trip. Over the five-day week, driving only from home to campus is 182 miles.

Most cars average 30 miles to the gallon, so a full tank of gas at an average price of $1.15 would cost them $7 a week – about $225 for gas for the academic year.

Despite the cost of commuting, most students who live outside Ames said they do not want to change their location.

Gibbs leaves her apartment an hour before her classes start, but she said it’s not important.

“From what I’ve compared with my friends in Ames, we’re paying less for what we’re getting,” she said.