10 Universities With Most Freshmen Commuters

Many large universities require that students live in campus housing as freshmen and, among those that don't have such a regulation, most first year students tend to choose dorm life over an off-campus apartment or house. 

In fact, at the 224 national universities that reported first year student housing data to U.S. News in a 2010 survey of undergraduate programs, an average of just 20.3 percent of first year students lived off campus. (National universities are institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate and graduate degrees and emphasize research.)

At 62 of the schools, 5 percent or less of the first year student population opted to live off campus—and 17 of those schools reported no students living off campus. Among those 17 institutions, several, including Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University, placed in the top 10 of U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges. 

[See which schools have the most undergraduates living on campus.] 

Conversely, there were only 25 schools that indicated that more than half of first year students opted to live off campus. The University of Massachusetts—Boston offers no housing for students and is strictly a commuter school, and was the only national university to report that all first year students lived off campus. 

The University of New Orleans, with the second highest percentage of first year students living off campus among the survey respondents, encourages students to consider living in campus housing, but reported that 92 percent of first year students opted to live elsewhere. 

[See 10 colleges with "green" dorms.] 

If you're looking for a school with a vibrant campus life and residence halls filled with your peers, it's important to consider the amount of freshmen who opt to live on campus during their first year. Conversely, if you plan to commute, the figures can point you to schools where that's the norm rather than the exception among freshmen.

The following table highlights the national universities that reported the highest number of first year students that live off campus: 

* RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one fourth of the National University category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it. Institutions designated as unranked by U.S. News were not considered for this list.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find housing statistics, complete rankings, and much more. 

U.S. News surveyed more than 1,700 colleges and universities for our 2010 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Colleges rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data comes from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools.