Thanks, Angelina! Good points~~

College studens do pay rent ALL THE TIME. Wether they are charged the fee for a dorm or they pay rent off campus, unless they have really great parents they don't tend to live rent free (and most of my friends who did live with parents while in college paid them rent!). Student loans do often figure in living expenses...often not quite enough, hence so many getting part-time jobs. Unless, again, they have parents who will pay. The parents thing was out of the question for Tara, of course, but Willow's seem like the type that might help with college expenses with their tendency towards sort of vague parenting. Money for stuff, great, actually paying attention not so much. Then again, Willow probably did well on the scholarship front, what with staying at a local school

Of course, reasonable rent from two people does not tend to equal mortgage payments plus taxes plus maintance on a house or a lot more of the folks I know would be spending their money on their own place right now.

As for pagers...there was a slight bit of discontinuity in that too. There was the whole thing on First Date like you said, then seasons later when she hooks up with the Initiative she's given a pager and says something like "I always wanted one of these."