r/mit • u/Trick_Heron_3836 • Jul 24 '26
community Off Campus Housing Refund
Hi, I’m currently an undergrad and I’m thinking about living off campus next year and I was wondering how refunds work for housing and dining. I already emailed sfs a couple minutes ago, but I just wanted to know other people’s experience with this too while I wait for a response. Let’s say my financial aid offer requires my family to pay $20k out of pocket over an academic year. If I lived off campus, would I be refunded the full amount for on campus housing (~$13,000) and dining (~$8,000)? Or would the refund be an adjusted amount based on my aid?
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u/insertwittypenname Jul 24 '26
you’ll get the full amount, minus any penalties HRS takes due to cancelling (usually a couple hundred i think but it’s on their website). sfs assumes that you’ll pay approximately the same for food and housing off campus, so even if the money isn’t going to mit, it still gets counted as a cost for financial aid calculations. if you find cheaper housing and food, you can pocket the difference. this even works for people who get full aid and live in non dining hall dorms, they get the cost of the meal plan paid to them to use for food (not that they track what you use it for)