<pre><code>* First-Year Students Guaranteed On-Campus Housing
* 80% of first-year students live in college housing
* 21% of all undergraduates live in college housing
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<p>how does the college board determine what is a commuter college and what is a residential college?</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about how the College Board categorizes colleges, but the overall percentage of undergraduates living on campus is small, only 21 percent! Does the college give housing preference to first years? I’d put a college under ‘commuter’ heading if less than 25% live on campus. </p>
<p>Of course, these students may just live in off campus apartments; I don’t know if one still considers a school ‘commuter’ if its students don’t live at home with their parents.</p>
<p>I think a commuter campus is one where most kids are living at home and driving into school. A commuter campus is usually one where the school draws most of its enrollment from within its area (within driving distance).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call a school a “commuter campus” if many kids live in off-campus apts that surround the school. </p>
<p>If a school is large - say more than 20,000 students, it’s hard to provide on-campus housing to more than 20-25% of the students (it’s too much of a financial risk, too). That wouldn’t necessarily mean that it’s a commuter campus. </p>
<p>BTW…when students live in Greek housing that are not owned by the college, I don’t think those kids are included in the “on-campus” numbers, either.</p>
<p>Does the school require freshman to live on campus (unless they have a waiver)?</p>
<p>There’s a commuter college by me that requires all frosh to live on campus (unless a waiver can be secured). it doesn’t change the fact that it still is a commuter campus.</p>
<p>I wonder if they are using data that indicates which counties the students are coming from. If a school is mostly drawing from its own county, then I could see it being labeled “commuter.”</p>
<p>NOTE that 80% Freshmen could be very very small number. What you need to look at is the number of all 4 year students live in campus.</p>
<p>For example, A school has 10,000 students. Only 1,000 students are freshmen and 80% of them (=800 people) live on campus. Plus, IF there’s only freshmen live on campus (if 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students all commute), then it’s only 800/10000 = 8%!!! That’s absolutely a commute school even “80%” of FRESHMEN live on campus.</p>
<p>So look at Evergreen state, 21% of all undergrads live on campus. That’s very small number. I don’t know what percent would make a college “resident” but 21% is absolutely not enough.</p>
<p>If a quarter of the students are freshmen and four-fifths of them live on campus, that’s 20% of the student body. So that leaves, what - housing for another 1% of the student body? Clearly, no one other than frosh has housing.</p>