Footing it to class

Richard Florida at the Creative Class Exchange:

Ohio State university sociologist, Kent Schwirian summarizes the results of an OSU study of the relationship between where students live and their grade point average and the time they take to graduate.

Percent graduating in four years:

• Walking distance 60.8%
• Near campus 47.5%
• Rest of county 36.7%
• Outside of county 21.1%

Grade point average:

• Residence hall 3.33
• Walking distance 3.16
• Near campus  3.12
• Rest of county 2.97
• Outside of county 2.94

Correlation doesn't imply causation.  But it makes some sense here.  Being a student is easier when you live within walking distance of campus.  It's easier to get to class.  It's easier to study with other students.  It's easier to make a professor's office hours.  It's easier to get to the library. (Do college students use libraries any more?)

Just another data point for evaluating the harm the City of Austin inflicted on University of Texas students by its years-long ban on dense development in West Campus.

Comments

[M1EK]

There's blame to spread here. UT didn't have any interest in building dorms for a long time (even though they clearly had some on-campus space available - given the big dorm that just opened at 27th/Guadalupe). The state never told UT to build more dorms. UT never told the city to let the market build more apartments. Etc.

Imagine if instead of a few crackpots like me against the ANC, the state and the university had stood up and said "enough is enough; let the market build dense on West Campus or we'll annex it to UT", for instance.

[M1EK]

To be fair, though, the last figure may represent a disproportionate number of part-time students or those who have to work full-time while attending school.

[Kedron Jerome Touvell]

Interesting, but I believe there are many other factors here. Essentially Dorms and West Campus provide equal access to campus, yet there is .17 difference in gpa. My guess is the difference there is due more to lifestyle factors -- West Campus being filled with Frats, parties, etc. Going further out from campus, I think you have to worry about demographic issues -- for example look at the huge difference in "graduate in 4 years" between "rest of county" and "out of county", yet the gpa is almost the same. Distance is probably a good proxy for part-time non-traditional students vs. full-time traditional students (for instance, I'm 31 with a professional-level job and have been attending UT now for 7 years).

[M1EK]

PS: You've been linked at Burnt Orange Report. I've commented in response.

http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4828

[AC]

I'm still struck by the drop-off in graduation rates from "walking distance" to "near campus."

It would be interesting to know the historical drop-out rates for UT students living in West Campus and those living out on E. Riverside or Montopolis. Since I'm sure no one's kept such statistics, I'll feel free to speculate: I bet the average drop-out rate is higher for students living on E. Riverside or Montopolis, even after controlling for things like race and family income. It's harder to be a UT student living out there, making the ones on the bubble more likely to quit.

[AC]

If I remember right, M1EK, didn't the Daily Texan editorial board oppose the UNO?

[M1EK]

I actually can't remember how the DT came down on it, but the closest I could find is this typical paleoliberal whine:

http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/04/06/Opinion/West-Campus.Eyesores-2827701.shtml

which post-dates UNO by quite a bit (as if those crappy houses in West Campus had any character to begin with).

[Kedron Jerome Touvell]

I don't remember about the DT either (does anyone pay attention to their endorsements anyway?), but I remember speaking about UNO with the student body president at the time. He was favorable towards the change but worried that the parking requirements were too low (he believed students would still need cars to commute to jobs). Interestingly, he was pretty bitter towards Brewster -- apparently he was promised one thing in negotiations that was later retracted on final passage. I told him to get used to it -- such is the MO in politics. :)

[M1EK]

That reminds me of a case I used to bring up to the anti-transit Neanderthals when they'd say we should all pay for the roads because they help deliver the goods we buy at the store, even if we ourselves don't drive. When I'd use the 983 as a bus-boost in the morning on my bike commute up northwesterly, each and every morning a handful of people would get off the bus at the Arboretum to go to work (they looked student-age).

So you can, in fact, get to work without a car. Unless your company, like mine, locates in one of the few places you can't get to on a bus easily from UT.

[Shilli]

Here is another story from DT:

http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2006/02/17/TopStories/The-New.Face.Of.West.Campus-1618437.shtml

Focusing mainly on how expensive the new units are (without much thought about how new units might reduce prices for existing stock) and how there isn't enough parking. One interesting tidbit: the article mentions that UNO planners stipulated that housing developments built under the new guidelines must lease parking spaces to tenants separately from the housing, but some developments are cheating by charging tenants $1 for a year of parking.

I don't think the DT is liberal enough to refer to them as "paleoliberal." ANC, Chronicle, sure. DT seems more like a bunch of kids from the suburbs having their first experience of having to pay to park their Explorers.

[Andrew]

It's probably largely a result of social class. Richer kids can afford the expensive residence halls and housing near campus while poorer kids can't afford them and live further away. Rich kids tend to do better in school than poor kids due to their parents education, not having to have part time jobs...

[AC]

Maybe. I don't know enough about OSU. On some campuses, dormitories are the cheap housing; the rich kids move off campus at first opportunity.

[M1EK]

I would think OSU would have been like PSU - off-campus housing was usually but not always more expensive - dorms were a really awful deal for what you got (medium price for very low space/amenities), so you could sometimes find a better price per head if you got enough people together and it was almost always a better deal even when it was a higher price.