The ‘gown’ unconcerned with the town? Residential satisfaction of university students living in off-campus private accommodation

Abstract

This paper aims to extend the understanding of residential satisfaction determinants of students living in off-campus private accommodation and thus contribute to the studentification debate. Our study is based on an original dataset derived from a survey conducted among students in Lodz, Poland and Turin, Italy. Using the ordered logit model, we tested the impact of neighbourhood and accommodation attributes, as well as personal and household characteristics, on students’ residential satisfaction. Our findings show that owning the property has the most significant effect on students’ residential satisfaction. Moreover, this satisfaction increases when student accommodation is affordable, located in a building of pleasant appearance, and in a neighbourhood well connected by public transportation and with a student atmosphere. In light of these findings, we claim that students’ residential satisfaction is not determined by most neighbourhood attributes; therefore, a wide range of neighbourhoods are potentially ‘studentifiable’.