What are people paying so much in rent for these days?

I go to a PWI (in WI) and I got my first apartment last spring in the dorms on campus. It was reasonable for about $600/Mo (didn't have to pay for utilities, would've been a little higher if I didn't). <br><br>I like it, so I've stayed. The dorm is still ok, just a little expensive for what it is. I've been there long enough to have figured out the situation and how to make my space comfortable. They've also fixed a lot of things that were broken when I moved in. <br><br><br>My loose plan has been to find another apartment this fall and move out next spring. The current dorm is not ideal, its a little pricy, and it **just doesn't feel like normal adult living.** So, I want to move out. It is very convenient to not pay for utilities and my school helps with stuff like finding new places to live and making sure everything's set up. However, I'm a little more familiar with the situation and I'm not convinced that I can find something for myself that is a significantly better situation. <br><br>I've grown up in Wisconsin my whole life and I know that it is not the norm here for rent to be "like, nearly 2000$/Mo" every place you go. There are some obvious exceptions that aren't surprising to me. For example, in downtown Madison, there are a lot of high-rise condos with luxury apartments and they are more expensive. I expect that. <br><br>I did not expect for every random little town in WI to also have $1500+$/Mo one bedroom apartments. I've looked at a few places that offered student apartments and they were about the same price as my dorm. <br><br>I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I think part of the problem is that I'm a student so landlords are probably skeptical of me, which makes a lot of sense. I also don't work right now, I'm in school still. I need something that is relatively easy to get into. Maybe I need to try harder. Maybe I'm just living in the wrong place. <br><br>I know I can **probably** find something if I try really hard, but I'm also not gonna go homeless if I need to resign myself to my dorm for a little longer.