Living Near Campus in Melbourne: Is It Worth It at RMIT vs Monash?

This is not another suburb list – our Melbourne suburbs guide and CBD vs Carlton vs North Melbourne vs Brunswick comparison already cover that in depth. This is the underlying question those guides assume you have already answered: is living close to campus actually worth it, and does the answer change depending on what kind of campus you are enrolled at?

The trade-off, stripped down

Living close to campus buys you time and flexibility: no commute, easy access to labs, libraries and group work at odd hours, and less friction on the days everything goes wrong. Living further away typically buys you money and space: lower rent for the same standard of housing, and often a quieter, more residential environment. Neither is correct in general – the right answer depends on how much your specific campus actually punishes distance, which is where RMIT and Monash genuinely differ.

RMIT: the trade-off is smaller than you would expect

RMIT’s City campus sits inside Melbourne’s CBD, so unlike a suburban university, there is no genuinely cheap option right next to campus – the areas immediately around it (CBD, Carlton, North Melbourne) are all among the more expensive parts of the city. The realistic “far” option for RMIT students is not a nearby cheap suburb, it is a suburb on a direct train or tram line a little further out – Brunswick or Footscray, for example – trading a short, reliable commute for real savings, rather than trading convenience for a meaningfully cheaper next-door suburb.

Monash: the trade-off is real, and worth doing properly

Monash’s largest campus, Clayton, sits about 20km south-east of the city – a genuinely suburban setting where nearby areas (Clayton itself, Oakleigh, Huntingdale, Notting Hill, Mount Waverley) are already among Melbourne’s more affordable, student-heavy suburbs. That changes the calculation: living right by campus at Monash does not carry the same price premium it does at RMIT, so the decision comes down more to lifestyle preference – walking to labs and the library versus a quieter street a stop or two further out – than to a large cost trade-off. Monash also has other campuses (Caulfield, closer to the city; Peninsula, considerably further out), so confirm which specific campus your course actually uses before choosing where to live.

Questions worth answering before you decide

• How often will you realistically need campus outside normal hours – labs, group projects, late library sessions? This matters more for lab-heavy science and engineering courses than for lecture-based ones.
• What does the actual commute look like on a direct public transport line, not as the crow flies – a suburb one train stop further can be barely slower than one right next door.
• What is the real rent difference for a comparable room, not just the suburb’s reputation – sometimes it is smaller than expected, sometimes it is significant.
• Which specific campus does your course use, especially at Monash – the right suburb for a Clayton-based course is different from one for Caulfield or Peninsula.

Bottom line

Whether living near campus is worth it depends on your specific university’s geography more than general advice can capture. At RMIT, the price gap between close and reasonably far is small, so convenience often wins by default. At Monash, real, affordable options exist right by campus, so the decision is more genuinely a lifestyle choice than a forced trade-off. Work out your actual commute and actual rent difference before deciding, rather than assuming either direction is automatically right.