How Long Is Your Drive?

Some drives are close, some are far, but we all make it work.  Students at OU weigh in or where they live.

On Tuesday September 25, students asked other Oakland University students questions about commuting.  These students wanted to know the opinion of other students, and the reason behind why they commute to school.  A range of 7 questions were asked:

1. What’s your name and major?
2. What’s your class standing?
3. Do you live on or off the campus?
4. Do you live at home or rent locally?
5. Where do you commute from (city)?
6. How long is your commute?
7. Why did you decide to live off campus?

The number of students who answered the questions were 67 in total, it was 1 freshman, 9 sophomores, 14 juniors, 32 seniors, and 10 senior +.  Majors ranged from communication, business, nursing, engineering and more, which gave us a better pool of students. There was a large spectrum of commuters.  There were some students on campus, but many lived off campus.  The closest off campus were Rochester, Auburn Hills, and Pontiac which is 10-15 minutes away.  The farthest were Romeo, Armada, and Heartland which range from 40-60 minutes away.

See below for a pie chart of how far students are driving:

If you look at the chart above on Sept. 25, 2018 we see the majority of students live within an hour of their school and the further out you go the less percentage of people attend.  This would make sense because not many people want to see how far they can drive to go to school.

“It was much cheaper, and I wanted more privacy than the dorms,” Senior Liz Starnes said. “I would have lived in the on campus apartments but the age cut off is so early I wouldn’t have been able to live there until my senior year.  Also the food options were very difficult for me as someone who was trying to get healthy.”

She is right, however, here is something to try to eat healthier in college, especially if you chose to live on campus.

The majority of students live at home because it’s cheaper, and some students have jobs near home.  It’s simply more convenient for most.  Others pay rent since it’s more feasible, and one student just wanted to live on their own rather than living with parents. Below we have a map that shows each students location, and it gives you a visual of where and how far OU students commute.

To see a map of where the respondents came from and how long their commute takes, click here.