On-campus housing: A place to succeed

When Christina Hurtado, director of residential life at Fort Hays State University, talks about the benefits of living on campus, she knows what she is talking about. Her knowledge comes from personal experience as well as her 16 years of professional experience in college residential life

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The benefits are not complicated. Start with convenience.

“You just roll out of bed, walk out the door and go to class,” she said.

All the bills are built into one payment: gas, electric, cable, Internet. In the morning, you don’t have to drive or hunt for parking spaces. The library is close at hand, as is the Student Health Center, computer labs, professors, counseling services and work-out facilities. If you have a meal plan, you don’t have to cook or shop for groceries.

But then come the really important benefits, and they begin with more than 25 years of research showing that students who live on campus have a higher average GPA and success rate than students who live off campus.

“They are less distracted and have more help available,” she said. “Students who live on campus are more connected to their peers. They make friends easier, and they are surrounded by friends going through same thing.”

“Living on campus is what helped me be successful,” she said. She was a first-generation student when she went to Southwestern College, Winfield, from her hometown of Kansas City.

“I didn’t know anyone, and none of my friends came with me.”

But, living on campus, she could study and work with friends who were studying the same things and going through the same experiences, and she had residential life staff to help guide her.

“The people who work in these roles – the hall directors, the RAs, who are students – they all work really hard to help our students be successful because they care.”

CAPTIONS

1082 - Room in a residence hall at FHSU.

1217 - Kitchen in one of the apartment-style housing units on campus.