Good Landlord
A good landlord is what determines if most Utah State University students who live off campus will be satisfied with their housing, according to a recent survey of about 180 students.
Luke Erickson, a consumer science graduate student who compiled and distributed the survey, will present the results today at a professional housing educators conference in Denver.
“We found out that the landlord was basically in charge of whether a student thought a place was of value,” Erickson said.
Although the landlord plays a significant role in the survey, many students said the environment, such as upkeep and cleanliness, is very important as well, according to the survey. Other variables included parking and location.
The idea of the survey came from ASUSU’s Web site, A-station, which provided a straw poll in February 2005, where students could answer what determines where they will live off campus.
“That’s how the survey came about,” Erickson said. “We decided that because my area of study is housing, we could use that survey to find out some stuff.”
However, because ASUSU had trouble getting accurate results online, Erickson and his professor, Lucy Delgadillo, distributed a paper copy of the survey in spring 2005 to students in several different classes, including Family Finance, which has about 500 students, he said.
The survey consisted of 21 closed-ended questions describing a student’s apartment complex and one open-ended question at the end to capture additional information not contained in the closed-ended questions, according to the survey.
The final sample included 180 usable surveys – meaning they were from students who actually live off campus.
“Value [of off-camus housing] was defined by overall quality and overall price,” Erickson said.
On average, however, most USU students who lived in off-campus housing said they were fairly satisfied with their current housing.
Lucinda Higley, manager of a USU off-campus housing complex, said she hasn’t received a lot of complaints so far this year.
However, the complex offers many amenities, including free wireless Internet, cable TV, an indoor pool and hot tubs and a lounge with a big-screen television and a weight room.
Ashley Hyde, manager of another off-campus housing complex, said most students are there because it is a very social place to live even though it doesn’t offer as many amenities.
However, because there are so many variables, it is difficult to determine which housing complex is the best at USU, Erickson said, but the survey is a fairly good indicator of what students think.
In Erickson’s analysis of the survey, he recommends further studies be done to compare off-campus housing with other universities throughout Utah.
-mmackay@cc.usu.edu
