Living On-Campus vs. Off-Campus

A student’s life takes a major turn after they are done with school and enter college. A lot of decisions need to be taken while going to a university, what major should be pursued, what courses should be taken related to the major in which they can do well in order to go on and do well in life. The students who go to university away from their home town, have to make another decision about where they will stay whether it’ll be on-campus or off-campus.

A lot goes into making that decision because there are a lot of variables to be considered.

The major difference is cost. On-campus housing has a fixed cost and they have only a few variations in the types of rooms provided. They have meal plans which have to bought as they do not have access to a kitchen in order to cook their own food. On the other hand, off-campus housing has a lot more options to choose from, like they can rent an apartment or a single room depending on the requirement and the price negotiable.

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The raw material can be bought in large amounts and students can prepare the food by themselves, this costs less than the meal plans.

Another difference is the convenience. On-campus living is incredibly convenient as the hostels would be located on campus, so classrooms would be in close distances and it is easy for them to be on time for the class. They do not have to worry about utilities as the university provides them with basic things.

They just need to clean their own room and not worry about the cleaning or the maintenance of anything else. The privacy levels are less in on-campus housing. Students are comfortable in the environment they stay in and do not face any challenges. In case of any emergency, there will be people to help out the students staying in the dorms. In contrast, off-campus living is very inconvenient as all the utilities need to be bought and managed by the student itself. The cleaning of the entire apartment needs to be done by the student. Students off-campus enjoy a lot more privacy. Off-campus students face huge challenges associated with their living environment. Current trends in housing development impact the students’ well-being in inconvenient ways. (Muslim, Karim, Abdullah.2012). In case of an emergency, they need to call someone in order to get help.

Although, on-campus and off-campus housing have differences they something in common as well. The academic performance of students who lived on-campus did not vary from the students who lived off-campus. Bowman and Partin conducted a study to determine if there is a significant difference between the academic performance of the students living on-campus and those who lived off-campus, by comparing their grade point average (GPA) it is was found that statistically there is no significant difference in their performance. (Frazier.2009).