Where students live
Northern New Jersey has no purpose-built student housing around this campus, so the market is ordinary apartments in the surrounding towns. Upper Montclair and Montclair hold the two genuine room-share options, which are the only per-bed prices anywhere in the set. Clifton — Richfield Village, Styertowne, The Courtyard — is the deepest supply, Little Falls holds Great Notch Village and Citizen, and Bloomfield holds Parkway Lofts and the university’s own cheaper Bloomfield-campus housing. Campus shuttles run through the TripShot app: All Campus from 6am to 1am on weekdays, Village Transit, a Bloomfield route, an hourly 1515 Broad Street run, the Red Hawk timed to train arrivals, and a Night Hawk on demand from 10pm to 2am.
Heads up — this school breaks the usual rules
- Montclair State publishes no bed dimensions at all — not for the halls, not for the apartments. Every furniture reference says only that a room contains a bed, a desk and a desk chair.
- The room-rates page was still headed 2025–2026 in August 2026 — while the meal-plan page had already been updated to 2026-27. The rates quoted here are the published 2025-26 figures — treat them as indicative and confirm.
- A meal plan is mandatory even if you live in an apartment — apartment residents must hold at least the Apartment Flex Plan at $285 a semester, and every resident also owes a mandatory $305-per-semester Winter Break Meal Plan on top.
- The university contradicts itself on fridge size — Fire Safety says 3 cubic feet and 1.5 amps; the What-to-Bring page says 3.5. Fire Safety is the safer number to buy against. Microwaves are capped at 700W in traditional and suite halls, 1,000W in apartments.
- Lofting is prohibited — students may not assemble or disassemble beds at any time — and the appliance rules split by building: a toaster, George Foreman grill and rice cooker are allowed only in the Village and Hawk Crossings, and banned everywhere else along with air fryers, Instant Pots, hot plates, electric skillets, deep fryers and waffle makers.
- Moving off campus here usually costs more, not less — on-campus doubles work out around $395–$545 a month over nine months. The cheapest whole unit in the surrounding towns starts near $1,645, and the cheapest per-bed room share is $820.
Buying the standard college checklist here will waste money — check your building first, and run the per-person arithmetic before assuming an apartment is the cheaper option.
Apartments & rentals students actually use
| Community | Distance | Units & rates | Furnished? | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valley Rd room share Cheapest per-bed price found anywhere in this market. | Upper Montclair | $820 per bed | Unfurnished | not published |
| 14 Hamilton Terrace The only other genuine per-bed listing. | Montclair | $950 per bed | Unfurnished | not published |
| Richfield Village Deep supply, conventional per-unit rental. | Clifton | Studio $1,645; 1BR $1,850; 2BR $2,245 per unit | Unfurnished | not published |
| Claremont Holdings Close in, small building. | 188 Claremont Ave | Studio–2BR $1,792–$1,936 per unit | Unfurnished | not published |
| Styertowne Larger complex in Clifton. | 5 Market St, Clifton | Studio–2BR $1,890–$2,425 | Unfurnished | not published |
| Great Notch Village Single-bedroom stock in Little Falls. | 1 Rustic Ridge Rd | 1BR $2,000 per unit | Unfurnished | not published |
| The Courtyard at Clifton Newer build. | 1 Kowal St, Clifton | Studio $1,995; 1BR $2,450; 2BR $2,750 | Unfurnished | not published |
| Parkway Lofts Converted industrial building, wide range. | 5 Lawrence St, Bloomfield | Studio–2BR $2,025–$3,995 | Unfurnished | not published |
| Citizen Little Falls Most expensive of the set. | 405 Main St | 1BR $2,780+; 2BR $3,500+ | Unfurnished | not published |
Rents are asking prices gathered in August 2026. Montclair State publishes no distances to any off-campus property, so use the town as your guide and check the shuttle map. Whether NJ Transit offers a student discount is not published either.
How it compares to a dorm
On campus, rates are billed by the year: a Bohn or Freeman triple is $3,951, a double $4,740, Blanton/Russ/Stone doubles $5,087, Sinatra $6,073, the Village $6,190 and a Machuga/Dinallo Heights single $7,208. The Bloomfield campus is cheaper still — Austin Place doubles at $4,838. Spread over nine months, a $4,740 double is about $527 a month, and it includes utilities. The cheapest whole unit nearby is $1,645, and the cheapest room share $820. Unless you are splitting a two-bedroom with someone, the dorm is the cheaper option here, and that is before the mandatory meal plans that follow you off campus anyway.
What you'll need
Because northern New Jersey rentals come unfurnished, this is a complete setup rather than a top-up — bed, mattress, kitchen, bathroom, the lot. Buy the mattress before the sheets: an unfurnished apartment usually fits a Full or a Queen, and Montclair State never published what size its dorm beds were, so there is nothing to carry over on that front. The fridge and microwave you used in the halls do carry over, and the wattage caps that constrained them on campus stop applying once you leave.
Apartment checklist Apartment shop