<p>I was looking at my daughter’s list of reaches and matches, and started to notice that at all her reach schools, at least 85% of the students live on campus. Her match schools’ on-campus percentages were a good deal lower. So for the fun of it, I took the top 25 universities from the U.S. News ranking (I know, I know - it was purely a “sample of convenience”) and calculated the correlation between rank and % of students in residence. The correlation is .72, which is huge; the likelihood of such a correlation being due to random chance is miniscule. (BTW, percentage of on-campus students is not one of the U.S. News ranking criteria.) So then I tried it with other “convenient” ratings - the correlation between on-campus percentage and the Princeton Review ratings of the same schools’ selectivity is .68 - again, huge. The correlation with Princeton Review’s ratings of the quality of campus life on each of the 25 campuses is .41, which suggests a random occuence rate of fewer than 5 times in 100.</p>
<p>Granted, you can buy into these indices of “quality” or not, and any correlation cannot infer causation - quality could lead to greater campus residence or vice versa (or, if you think the “quality” rankings are flawed, neither may influence the other). But for all the times that we’re shown student-teacher ratios, % of classes with < 20 students, graduation rate, etc., it may be worth taking a look at the proportion of students who live in campus housing. My experiences with the college culture leave me no doubt that the quality of life on a highly residential campus is greatly enhanced from that at campuses with larger commuting contingents.</p>
<p>An interesting observation. One thing to adjust for, at least mentally, is that the proportion of students living on campus tends to be higher in places with high housing costs, and in rural areas with few other housing opportunities.</p>
<p>gadad, I absolutely agree with you and that was a focus when we were college shopping. The biggest negatives for most of our State Colleges was that not only do 90% of the kids come from Pennsylvania, but most also come from no more then two hours away, meaning the ones that want to, can go home easily. Key for the colleges is to make the kids want to stay on campus.</p>
<p>My son’s college, Roanoke, has housing available for all four years and it’s pretty much required for the first two. Every weekend features an event, some small like showing a movie, some bigger with food and bands but the students can always count on something free being held on campus. They also do an awesome job of getting the freshman involved in campus activities including a service requirement the first year. Last year the freshman built a habitat for humanity house for their orientation. </p>
<p>Also important are the housing options. My son will have a private room this year in a themed area. My daughter dormed all four years in a beautiful Harry Potterish house. I’m not talking luxury, but quirkiness that is different then a cinderblock building.</p>
<p>Is there a correlation between size and on-campus housers? It’s pretty hard to house a 10K-20K undergrad population. Also, it seems like at many schools, the upperclassmen like to live in nearby homes and apartments rather than <em>another year in the dorm</em>. When I went to UNC, it was the <em>thing to do</em> to try to get into one of the cool houses next to campus. Didn’t affect the quality of life, because the off-campus housing was so closeby.</p>
<p>Yes, many of the better state schools have large adjacent off campus student populations who are not the classic commuters living at home. Wisconsin, Michigan, UNC, UCB and UVa are all that way to some extent. I think it makes the area even more lively and fun and teaches kids about living on their own.</p>
<p>But, the ‘top 25’ schools are attracting a population from the entire country as well as internationally. The students who attend are more likely to either be able to afford their high fees (and afford to live on-campus) or to receive aid from the well-funded schools so that they can afford to live on-campus.</p>
<p>I think these stats are skewed because of the above. I also think that a number of top-end state colleges would not fare as well simply because they attract a higher in-state population including from the immediate surrounding locale and a number of those students will commute. This doesn’t diminish the quality or ranking of those colleges - it’s just more practical for those less well-heeled and those who choose to attend locally for any number of reasons. There are plenty of UCB, UCLA, and UCSD attendees who commute and I’d expect the same at the other top state Universities.</p>
<p>I must have misunderstood, I though the OP was talking about living on campus (dorms) vs. off campus (rental homes, apartments) within the same town.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider - due to the higher number of attending students, some of the state schools may have a lower percentage of on-campus students yet still have a higher ‘number’ of on-campus students than many of the colleges with a high percentage of on-campus students. Those living on-campus would still enjoy the benefits of the on-campus experience.</p>
<p>Yet another factor - some of these state schools simply have too many attendees to have them all stay on-campus all 4 years. For example, UCB, considered by most to be a top school despite being a public, generally only offers one year of on-campus housing so the vast majority of students are required to live off-campus the majority of their time there. Although there are plenty of commuters, there are also a lot of people living off-campus in the immediate area - a ‘virtual’ campus housing. This is true at UCSD as well where most students can only live on-campus for 2 years. UCLA is driving towards offering 4 years of on-campus housing but it’s not there yet. The immediate area surrounding the campus is loaded with students in private housing yet not actually commuting.</p>
<p>I think the correlation has more to do with family income/socioeconomic status. The kids who have the top 25 schools as their goal are kids whose parents aspire to more than the state U. for them; thus the population is heavily skewed upper middle class and upper class. They have money to invest in tutoring, test prep, and extracurriculars to ensure their kids are competitive for those schools; they can also afford to shell out $10K per year for room and board.</p>
<p>Blue collar/first generation parents, in my experience, are far more likely to insist on their kids living at home, either because of finances or because of cultural values. </p>
<p>There was a really interesting culture clash on another college discussion board I hang out at…there were a bunch of parents discussing living options and the ones that came from blue collar/working backgrounds were all “of COURSE Johnny would never live in a dorm. They are awful, overpriced, etc.” The parents who had this view had mostly lived at home and gone to commuter schools, or had not gone right to college; had worked and gone to school as adults. Those of us who had gone away to college and lived on campus were all “Living away from home is a huge piece of the college experience.” The ones with that view had in general grown up in more affluent or educated families than the parents who were anti-dorm.</p>
<p>Somewhere I read a study that found that students who live in on-campus housing tend to have better grades, and higher four year graduation rates than those that live off-campus. I’ll see if I can find it. My personal feeling is that a good part of your education comes from living in the dorms and learning how to get along with others. :)</p>
<p>Schools with not only guaranteed housing on campus for 4 years but also those that demand students live on campus for all 4 years create different campus environments than those where first year is guaranteed and then its off to an apartment from second year on. Housing should be seen as a major research issue when selecting and applying to schools.</p>
<p>I agree with Barrons that is makes a difference whether the off campus living is in adjacent student housing or if the student is living at home and commuting to school. At UVA, first years are required to live on campus so I assume that means that no first years live at home. They are also not allowed to have cars. I think about 50% of the 2nd years live off campus (although we have had our S stay in the dorms), but they don’t go back to living at home. They live in apartments and housing that surround the campus. Even though UVA is only an hour away and we know tons of kids who go there, virtually none of them come home on any time other than the major holidays.</p>
<p>While I agree that there is a nicer atmosphere at a college with more students on-campus, the official stats don’t paint an accurate picture. Consider UCLA, for example. The number of students living “on campus” is around 10,000 (as of about 2 years ago - the number has gone up by now to probably around 14,000), which is a small number when you consider that the number of students is about 35,000. </p>
<p>However, the numbers can’t tell you that a huge number of students (I would guestimate about 12,000 or more) lives in the apartments area right next to campus (literally within a half mile of campus). IMO this doesn’t count as living “off campus” because the atmosphere is the same - its basically all students in that area next to campus.</p>
<p>Percentage of off-campus students is a measure of the number of working students, wealthy party animals, and poor students (live with parents), which anticorrelate with school ranking.</p>
<p>Percentage in dormitories correlates with endowment (needed to build housing, maintain and subsidize it), which is almost the same as ranking.</p>
<p>^I think these are some of the main explanations. The positive way to spin it is that the decision to create a nearly all-residential campus is often done conciously, becauses colleges believe it can affect campus climate in positive ways. And and it’s expensive: the trend toward building apartment-style housing to keep juniors and seniors from moving off campus doesn’t come cheaply, for instance.</p>
<p>LOL siserune, since my son, who will be moving into a house next month, doesn’t fall under the working or poor student category, I guess he’s one of your wealthy party animals. (And if you believe that I’ve got some swamp land to sell you…)</p>
<p>Most upperclassmen at UF live in houses and apts surrounding campus, which are basically upscale dorms, IMO. Most apts rent by the bedroom, which means you either find your own roommates, or they’ll put you in an apt with strangers. Just like living in a dorm.</p>
<p>The reason most students choose to move out of the dorm, is it gives them more independence, they can cook for themselves easier, it’s generally quieter, the apts are more comfortable, the apts come with all kinds of perks- pools, tennis courts, weight rooms, etc., and in general- the kids are getting a little older and want to spread their wings.</p>
<p>Edit: I forgot my son’s reason for moving into a house- he missed his drums!</p>
<p>Having discovered a website that instantaneously calculates simple correlations (and still looking for ways to enjoy playing with it), I remembered a recent college ranking that employs no subjective criteria or weightings and thought it would be a good measure to correlate with residential percentage. In 2005, several Harvard researchers published a study of 3,240 high-achieving students in which they calculated a ranking of colleges and universities based on offers of admission which the students chose over others. The resulting ranking therefore, is a measure of campus desirability in the student marketplace. They said that their statistical model “extends models used for ranking players in tournaments, such as chess or tennis. When a student makes his matriculation decision among colleges that have admitted him, he chooses which college ‘wins’ in head-to-head competition. The model exploits the information contained in thousands of these wins and losses. Our method produces a ranking that, unlike rankings based on the matriculation or admission rate, would be difficult for a college to manipulate."</p>
<p>The correlation of the top 25 in this objective ranking with the schools’ percentages of on-campus students is just over .50.</p>
<p>I have to admit, this is an interesting idea, and I commend gadad for noticing it. Like others, I believe it holds because the percentage of students living on campus probably correlates strongly with things like institutional wealth, attracting a national student body (or at least not a local one), the wealth (and hence SAT scores) of the student body, and the percentage of the student body who are full-time students (and thus 4- and 6-year graduation rates).</p>
<p>I suspect, though, that if you look beyond the top 25 universities, the correlation will break down relatively quickly. After all, among the top 25 universities, there are relatively few with a low percentage of on-campus students, and those will tend to be larger, public universities. So all the correlation is telling us there is essentially that the elite private universities outrank the elite publics, which isn’t such interesting news. When you look at the next 75, I suspect that there are going to be some relatively lower-ranked institutions with a much higher level of on-campus students than higher ranked ones (e.g., Pepperdine vs. UCLA). And over on the LAC side, it’s hard to imagine that percentage of students on campus will explain much of anything, since there will be plenty of somewhat lower-ranked schools with close to 100% on-campus residence.</p>
<p>It’s also interesting to me because my kids go to one of the anomalies in the top 25: The University of Chicago probably houses only something like 50-60% of its undergraduates. I believe Penn, Cornell, and Northwestern are similar – so that’s 25% of the top 15 ranked schools (but none of the top 6).</p>
<p>I think Mombot hit the nail on the head – it’s all about economics. Just like the “best” high schools are in the richest neighborhoods, the “best” colleges generally have the richest kids and, guess what, they can afford to live on campus.</p>
<p>Looking at the top 50 universities, the overwhelming majority of those where most students live on campus are small (less than 10K) and private. I would speculate that they are able to provide higher quality housing, at a higher cost, to more of their population. Some/most of public university dorms are awful! Yes, it’s cheaper than living off-campus, but the quality of life is…blech.</p>
When I went to UNC, it was the <em>thing to do</em> to try to get into one of the cool houses next to campus. Didn’t affect the quality of life, because the off-campus housing was so closeby.</p>