What people do is pile into apartments. Yeah, to live alone may cost let's say $2000/month rent. But you can pile 4+ people into a four bedroom apartment that costs $5000, split it four (or more) ways, and they're paying $1250/month. Some of them have significant others, so then you wind up with two people in one room each paying $625/month. (Just random numbers, but that's the general idea of it.)

The people I know who do it hate it, but it's what they can afford while staying in the area they like (and/or were born in, have a community in, etc.).