What era is this? Certainly it's not the last 20-25 years. I don't remember being able to afford anything until after I graduated and was fortunate enough to have parents that let me live in the basement while I got on my feet. My college jobs were barely enough to feed me, pay the interest on my loans, and pay my parents a pittance for my chunk of the power bill. Maybe it's easier for these kids to get a programming gig paying 70k+ while they're in school but when I was a kid companies wouldn't even look at you until you could guarantee 40 hours plus overtime.

The housing transition seems to be the same for the four years but parents are heavily supplanting the budget.

Colleges typically force all freshmen with out a local address to be in the dorms and have a full meal plan but there's typically a tuition saving if you can get the friends you've made in the first couple years to all go in with you on an apartment. Even more if you bothered to learn how to cook and can lower your meal plan.

But I do not think it's typical for any of those students to be getting an apartment without a parental guarantor, even if they have a needs based schedule and are packing their non school hours with work.

That was doable when I was attending in the the early 2010s. I did exactly that, except I also lived off campus my sophomore year.

But that was only doable then because it was an in-state public college in a LCOL city. I was paying $300/mo for my share of rent and utilities. That cost alone is at least doubled now. My $9/hr job for 15-20 hours a week covered everything to live, and need based pell grants covered most of tuition to with a few small loans through the govt that didn't require payments before graduation (abt 2k pet semester). When I found a new part-time gig my junior year that paid $27/hr, I was set up to be in a very be good place compared to most college students.

Again, cost of living alone has made that path very difficult today. But it was a thing not that long ago.

I moved into an apartment before my freshman year was done. Worked two jobs and had loans, scholarships, etc. That was a bit more than 25 years ago though.

That’s one experience but it varies between schools.

Sounds ideal however such a tranisiton is never really encouraged or enforced. I would argue that dependency is encouraged, probably because its hugely profitable.

I would say the most common message is much like"think of the children" , "think about your education" plently of time to learn real life skills after you graduate with huge amounts of dorm debt.