As it turns out, renting has become so expensive everywhere that living over 400 miles from your college and commuting by plane a few times a week is actually cheaper than living near campus. What a miserable world we live in. Anyway, Tim Chen, an economics student in his final year at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada did the math and determined that it was cheaper to live at home with his parents and fly to school.
Chen flies for a bit under two hours from his home in Calgary to school and back because he realized off-campus housing was just too expensive for him, according to the New York Post. He only has two classes on campus per week, and he called the – let’s say creative – mode of transportation “super-commuting.” That commute works out to be about seven round trips per month on Air Canada.
“I thought, why don’t I just stay at Calgary and then just fly here, it’s like a one-hour flight, that’s like the same as taking the bus,” Chen told CTV News Vancouver.
Here’s a little more information about how Chen decided flying 14 times a month was the right move for him, from The Post:
Chen didn’t always make the extreme commute to school each week.
He previously rented a place in Vancouver but stopped when he found the rent increased when he returned from vacation last fall.
“When I checked the house price I thought, oh shoot, there was a big increase!” he told the outlet. “I need to pay like $2,500 for the rent, so I don’t feel like it’s viable.”
A nonstop, round-trip flight from Calgary to Vancouver costs roughly $111.
With Chen only needing to commute to school twice a week, he will spend approximately $890 a month while still living at his parents’ house in Calgary.
A one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, the country’s most expensive city to live in, will put a renter down $1,550 a month.
[…]
“I’ve got three hours of class in total, after the class, I go back to the bus and go back to the airport!” Chen added.
Listen, I’m no math whiz. Hell, I’m not even very smart, but I know when one number is bigger than another. $890 is certainly less than $1,550, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the $2,500 Chen said he was spending on rent in Vancouver.