Referencing back to my previous post, I have decided to refine my topic to something more specified. Instead of just focusing on on-campus versus off-campus, I want to zero in on the socioeconomic status of students in reference to their choice of living and how that affects their involvement at the university. I feel like having a more directed focus will allow me to make a more specific claim and therefore, I will be able to delve deeper in my paper.
While looking online, I was able to find a lot of sources on the effects of academic success and involvement based on off or on campus living. I was also able to find a lot of sources on how socioeconomic status affects students at the university as a whole. What stood out most to me was how first year retention was an indicator of the effects of on versus off campus housing. A key term that also came up throughout my research was integration which delved into how deeply students felt involved and connected to the university. A lot of the material I found came from pdf files from organizations or university research sites, which I would be able to pull some quotes from.
Another source I found was from http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/localed/docs/LukeTimmons.pdf (The Uncritical Commute: The Impact of Students' Living Situations While at University) and it talked about how a students living status (on versus off campus) affected their mental and social lives while at the university through empirical evidence and wellness tests. This article is interesting because it talks about the counterargument of the topic which is how off versus on campus doesn't directly affect students, but the factors involving their living condition does (living with friends versus parents, distance from class, major, etc.). I think this article is relevant because it will allow me to discuss the controversy behind my thesis.
As mentioned in the comment above, the biggest counterargument to the topic of how on versus off campus housing (which is picked because of socioeconomic status) affects a students performance, is whether not it has a direct affect or rather, different factors create an effect instead. My argument will pertain to the direct correlation because of my experiences and stance on socioeconomic status.
These all look very interesting. It is interesting to think about the difference between a resident-majority school and a commuter-majority school. Rutgers has worked hard to keep the numbers for residents high despite our rapid growth. I saw statistics about two years ago that showed that Rutgers was over 50% residential students (53% I think), and that number likely went up with the building of some recent housing, including the honors housing on Seminary and the Yard housing. There has also been a premium housing boom near campus as developers have expanded the stock of new housing that is "just off campus."
ReplyDeleteI would be curious about current stats you might be able to turn up.
Looking for stats just now, I saw this interesting article:
http://hechingerreport.org/business-decision-segregating-college-students-income-race/
It mentions Rutgers and describes how the shift at universities toward higher-end housing options may be pricing lower-income students out of on-campus living, furthering the divide between the more and less affluent that Armstrong and Hamilton discuss. The divide between on campus living and off-campus living is definitely a class divide, and those different living situations tend to exacerbate that divide. I definitely think there is research showing that those living on campus tend to be more engaged and do better than students living off-campus -- that was found since the first studies on the topic by Chickering.