The effect of on- and off-campus housing on academic performance and student satisfaction in Toronto

This study examines the possible effects of on-campus housing and other living situations on university student academic performance and satisfaction using a robust panel dataset comprising academic records of 750,000 students across four universities in Toronto from 2007 to 2018, where student enrolment has outpaced on-campus housing provision. Complementary cross-sectional NSSE survey data provides additional insights into commuting time and educational satisfaction. Employing student fixed-effects models as robustness checks, results consistently indicate that on-campus housing positively affects academic performance (GPA), particularly benefiting first-year students. Increased commuting times for off-campus students negatively correlate with both academic outcomes and educational satisfaction. These results underscore the critical role of affordable on-campus housing in shaping academic engagement and highlight equity considerations central to student housing policy interventions. The findings contribute to ongoing housing debates on student housing development within broader discussions of neoliberal production of space, ‘studentification’, and affordable housing markets.