Two college friends rent an apartment. they have to pay the landlord two month's rent and a $500 security deposit when they sign the lease. the total amount they paid the landlord is $2800. what is the rent for one mounth?

Let's call the rent for one month . Thus, two months of rent would be . Since they only have to pay the $500 fee once, we can add that to the total as a constant (they aren't paying more for the security deposits based on how long they live there).

Thus, the total they pay the landlord is . Based on the problem, we can say this is equal to $2800:

Now, we can solve the equation:

The rent for one month is $1,150.