The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2 - 58

Jessica Wode

of their hall staff, making friends with other
students, and being close to their classes and
campus events and resources are more willing
to sacrifice the possible cost savings and greater
privacy and independence of off-campus living.
This suggests that having effective, highly
valued hall staff and high-quality, relevant programming to facilitate student bonding may
positively impact how many students seek to
return to campus housing the following year.
Not surprisingly, rating as important the
ability to pay for housing with a scholarship
was also a significant predictor of students
planning to stay on campus. Many scholarships
can only be applied toward the costs of campus
housing. For students who are dependent on
scholarships, this may limit their choice of
housing to the extent that any other factors
they value are largely irrelevant. Similarly, students who have neither a housing scholarship
nor the financial resources to afford on-campus housing may have limited options as well.
Future researchers should consider accounting
for these financial constraints when examining
the combined effect of various housing factors
on a student's decision about where to live.

LIMITATIONS
These analyses do not capture some of the individual and intangible factors that may drive a
student to seek off-campus housing. Although
there were no consistent patterns among the
Other factors that respondents were given
the opportunity to provide, the open-ended
responses on the off-campus student survey
indicated that "freedom" and "independence"
were common themes regarding what respondents liked about living off campus. To the
extent that this is tied to specific housing ac-

58

commodations (e.g., having a single room with
a private bathroom), colleges and universities
may be successful in keeping more students in
campus housing if they are able to offer these
more private accommodations. Students who
simply feel that they must get out from under
the university's oversight of their housing are
likely to seek off-campus housing regardless of
the accommodations offered.

It may not be necessary to construct
new buildings with single rooms
and private bathrooms if students
feel they receive so much value
from living in community with
the support of staff members that
they can forgo more private or less
expensive housing options .

Because of the anonymity of the survey
and the limited demographic information
captured, it was not possible to determine
whether specific student populations were
more likely to choose to move off campus. For
example, although it was possible to determine
that students for whom cost is an important
factor are more likely to move off campus, it
was not possible to determine whether family
income was related to students' likelihood
of indicating cost as very important to their
housing decisions. As a less obvious example,

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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