How Students Pick Their Apartments: Factors and Analysis

Wu, Kefei; DeVriese, Anthony

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Description

Title

How Students Pick Their Apartments: Factors and Analysis

Author(s)

• Wu, Kefei
• DeVriese, Anthony

Contributor(s)

Arends-Kuenning, Mary

Issue Date

2016-05

Keyword(s)

• student housing
• residence hall
• students’ preferences
• housing policy

Abstract

To learn about why students choose to move out of university provided housing, Kefei and Anthony conducted a research about different factors that students consider when choosing their living situations. During our research, we interviewed with an expert from the university, reviewed some past research studies, conducted three focus groups to gather qualitative data, and sent out online surveys to collect quantitative data. We had five hypotheses initially. Our main hypothesis was that students choose their apartments based on factors such as location, rent, amenities, safety, and roommate choice, with rent the most important factor and safety the least important factor. Surprisingly, as a result, nearly all participants of our online survey considered safety as the most important factor. Besides testing our hypotheses, we offered some policy implications to the University Housing Department based on what we learned from the research. First, the university should have more community activities to get students to know each other, by inviting student organizations to perform or hold events in residence halls. Second, the university is suggested to adjust room and board price reasonably by controlling spending, because a major reason for students to move out of university provided housing is the high price. Finally, the university ought to control the noise in residence halls to meet students’ satisfactions.

Series/Report Name or Number

ACE 471; Fall 2015

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/91582

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