During this period, many (prospective) students start looking for student housing. Others, along with their parents, are unsure whether to commute between home and university, a common option in Belgium, where many students live within commutable distance of campus cities. Should they take the effect on grades into consideration?

In scientific literature, you can find many theoretical reasons why moving into student housing is a good idea for your university grades. Commuting takes time that you cannot always use efficiently for studying. Those who have to get up early and sacrifice sleep as a result can also expect poorer performance, as previous research on sleep quality has shown (in Dutch).

“Furthermore, moving into student accommodation typically leads to better social integration at university, making it easier to ask questions to fellow students.”
Doctoral researcher Simon Amez (Ghent University)

However, there are also theoretical arguments for not moving into student housing if high grades are important to you.

“When social integration mainly leads to social activities that leave less time or focus for studies, moving into student accommodation cannot be expected to have a positive impact on exam results. In this regard, there is also scientific research that has studied the link between integration into student life, alcohol consumption, and academic performance.”
Professor Stijn Baert (Ghent University)

What does the data say?

These positive and negative arguments appear to cancel each other out. Researchers at Ghent University came to this conclusion after following 1,653 first-year students at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp for three years. Their conclusion is that there is no factual link between living in student accommodation and exam results.

“This finding contrasts somewhat with (limited) international research that previously found a positive impact of living in student housing. The difference is that they based their findings on so-called cross-sectional data. In other words, they could only establish and analyse the relationship between living in student housing and study results at a single point in time. This makes it much more difficult to isolate other characteristics that differ between students who live in student housing and those who do not, and which may also be responsible for their findings.”
Doctoral researcher Simon Amez (Ghent University)

According to the study, how exactly do students who live in student housing differ from those who do not?

“Our analyses indicate that students who do not speak Dutch (the main language of instruction) at home are less likely to live in student accommodation, as are students whose parents did not attend higher education. Since both factors are also (negative) predictors of university exam results, it is important to include them in the analyses. Additionally, these analyses indicate that there are other confounding factors that we did not measure, but which we were able to account for thanks to our longitudinal data.”
Professor Stijn Baert (Ghent University)

According to the study, what are the predictors of good performance at university?

“As mentioned earlier, students who do not speak Dutch at home and students whose parents did not attend higher education perform less well on average. Your secondary school grades are also a strong predictor of your university grades.”
Doctoral researcher Simon Amez (Ghent University)

“In line with previous research, we again find that students who sleep better also achieve better exam results. More generally, being in good health is also a positive predictor.”
Professor Stijn Baert (Ghent University)

The study is based on a high-quality sample of students, as it includes (approximately) all students who attended classes in 11 different study programmes at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp (rather than a sample in which participants selected themselves in an online survey).