What makes a commuter school

cangel
Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:43:44 +0000

Back in the day! We would have distinguished between suitcase schools and commuter schools. The University in my town is a “commuter” school. A large percentage of the students are adult part-time students or college-age kids living at home to save money. A goodly number are in nursing school, including a couple from my D’s class who could have easily gone away to college, but who saw no reason to leave a solid nursing program at home.

The university that I attended was something of a “suitcase” school. My distance of 100 miles was a long distance (in 1977) compared to most of my classmates, but, on the other hand, only about 25% of the freshman students could live in the family home and commute. Most freshman lived in the dorms, and went home on weekends, particularly in the spring. Most upperclassmen lived in the many off-campus apartments, and there was a lively apartment culture; the number of weekends home dropped dramatically for most students after freshman year. Lots of people dropped out, or changed schools.