The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2 - 48

Jessica Wode

. . . it is not the mandatory
meal plan but the lack of access
to one's own kitchen-rendering
a student dependent on the food
served at the dining hall-that
is most likely to drive a student
off campus .

portunities, a location close to campus, the
ability to choose where you live, academic
support available, and a high-speed Internet
connection. Significant positive predictors of
planning to live off campus were giving high
importance to the ability to cook meals, the
length of a lease or contract, the proximity
to campus/town, parking accommodations,
the ability to live with or near friends, and a
private bathroom. Note that it was not whether
these amenities were available that determined
if a student wanted to move off campus, but
whether those amenities were important to the
student in question.
Because these studies, from the 1990s and
2000s, may not represent the motivations of
the current generation of college and university students, additional research is needed.
As Twale and Damron found in 1992, what
students valued in their on-campus residence
halls had changed in just 10 years from a
concern primarily with maintenance and facilities to concerns about hall programs and
activities and opportunities to provide input
into hall decision-making. This same study
found that desires for more privacy and greater
48

independence were most commonly cited as
reasons students moved off campus.
In the current investigation, I examined
what this generation of college students values
most when making decisions about housing.
Past research tells us that students are more
likely to move off campus if they value privacy,
independence, and flexibility in their housing
arrangements. This suggests that campus
housing is not offering these elements and is
instead more likely to retain a subset of students looking for connection and convenience
more than privacy and independence. It is possible, however, that these findings are outdated
or are limited to the large research institutions
where most of this research has been conducted. The present study was aimed at determining whether these same themes emerge in this
generation of college students and at a small
private institution.
This study's purpose was to shed greater
light on which factors most influence a student's decision about where to live. The following questions were investigated:
1. On which factors, if any, do students
planning to move off campus place greater
importance than do students planning to
stay in campus housing, and vice versa?
2. Looking at students who have chosen to
move off campus and those who have
chosen to stay on campus, is there a clear
difference in which factors they cite as
being most important to that decision? If
so, which factors were significantly more
important to each group?
Identifying these factors is the first step in
being able to have a more informed conversation about why students choose to stay on
campus or move off campus.

T h e J o u r n a l o f C o l l e g e a n d U n i v e r s i t y St u d e n t H o u s i n g

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2

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