The Art Institute of Las Vegas Review: Housing Costs

It's hard for me to post on this subject because I have never lived in housing at AILV, but from what I've seen and heard from people who have lived there, it seems like a total sham.  The very first thing you need to do is look at how much it costs per month for a student to live there

 

The "Two Bedroom Double" plan shadily mentions you will be living with three (3) other individuals in a two (2) bedroom apartment.  This means for the two bedroom apartment, quarterly (every three months), the school is raking in $7800.  Where does this money go?

 

Each school-sponsored apartment at Martinique Bay is hooked up with internet (however, students must provide their own router for wireless internet) and cable (no television is provided).  I am not sure if students have the option to cancel either of these services.  For a package and decent internet and cable, I'm willing to bet this costs at a minimum $100/month, so you're looking at $300/quarter.

 

The students do not have to worry about the electric bill.  According to my electric bill, the average bill in my neighborhood is around $150.  Since there are four people living there, I'm going to be generous and bump the cable bill to $250, so you're looking at $750/quarter.

 

The school also provides transportation to and from housing to the school.  Before you think this is great, take a look at my blog about their transportation.  I wouldn't know what the cost of the transportation is, however, their big van-bus thing only seats 8 students and usually has to make multiple runs to get all the students to school.  HOW MANY RUNS A DAY.  $3000/quarter.

 

The student signs a 9-month lease (my best guess is because that is technically an academic year since the school is year round).  I went to the Martinique Bay website and looked up how much a 9 month lease would cost for what would be about the Fall Quarter of 2014: 

 

 

I'll just take it as $950 a month, provided that the school is providing some of the nicer apartments for its students.  Over three months, the rental cost would be $2850. 

 

There are apartments about a half a mile from the school.  If a two bedroom there, after expenses, ran $1,200 a month, split between two people, that would cost only $600/month or $1,800/quarter.  Not much in savings, but the benefits:

 

1)  You only have one roommate.

2)  You don't have to rely on transportation.

3)  You don't have to pay for cable or internet.

4)  The electric bill would more than likely be less.

 

A student can work into his/her financial plan to take loan money and have it deposited into a bank account instead of getting the money to live in housing.

 

Before transportation (cost of the driver, vehicle maintenance, gas, and insurance is hard to factor without knowing the numbers), the cost of living in student housing over three quarters is estimated at about $4000.  The school pulls in $7,800 at the cost of $4,000 (again, without knowing the transportation costs).  Multiply this by the number of apartments staying at housing - this number I don't have access to, but for fun, let's just say 10 (and that is a severe underestimate) - you get $40,000 of profit before handling transportation and the cost to pay the school's housing staff and RA's, yet the school doesn't provide a full transportation schedule for students.

 

To show you how up-to-date The Art Institute of Las Vegas manages their website, the screen capture below shows they have an email contact for their housing department that hasn't worked there for at least over a year and a half. 

 

(Link - was still active 27 Jul 2014)

 

List of all the posts I have about my experiences at AILV