Top 10 advantages of living in student digs

When I first started researching student housing trends, I expected to find a straightforward answer about whether shared accommodation or solo apartments made more sense. What I found instead was considerably more nuanced, and honestly, more interesting than I anticipated.

Most incoming university students picture themselves in a quiet studio apartment—their own space, their own rules, complete freedom. It sounds perfect until you are sitting alone at 2am trying to figure out why your internet is not working, or worse, opening an electricity bill that is triple what you budgeted for because winter hit harder than expected.

The National Survey of Student Engagement found something worth paying attention to: students in campus housing participate more actively in both academic and social activities. Not by a small margin either. This participation gap matters because engagement levels correlate directly with whether students stick with their degrees or drop out.

The global picture adds another layer. The OECD projects 8 million internationally mobile students by 2025. That is a staggering number of young people who will need to find housing in unfamiliar cities, often in countries where they barely speak the language. For them, the housing choice is not just about preference—it becomes about survival.

1. The Core Financial Benefits of Living in Student Digs

Here is where shared student accommodation pulls ahead in ways that surprised me. Most university-managed halls and purpose-built student accommodation bundle everything into one monthly payment: rent, utilities, internet, sometimes even contents insurance. You know exactly what you are paying each month.

Compare that to private rentals. Gas and electricity bills fluctuate wildly depending on the season and your usage. A particularly cold February could destroy your budget for the next two months. Then there are the upfront costs—security deposits that can equal two months of rent, agency fees, inventory charges, professional cleaning fees when you move out. Some students I spoke with paid nearly £2,000 just to move into a flat, before they had even bought groceries.

University halls often require minimal deposits, sometimes just an advance rent payment that gets returned. The difference is not trivial. Students in London’s purpose-built student accommodation report saving up to 33% compared to other rental options. In Liverpool, that figure sits around 25%, and in Sheffield about 15%. These are not small amounts when you are living on a student budget.

But there is something else at play here—the psychological weight of financial unpredictability. When you do not know if next month’s bills will be £80 or £180, it eats away at your ability to focus on studying. Financial anxiety is one of the top reasons students cite for dropping out or performing poorly academically.

2. The Crucial Proximity Advantage of Student Housing

Living ten minutes from campus versus living a forty-minute bus ride away fundamentally changes your university experience. This is not about convenience—it is about participation.

When you live in student accommodation near campus, you can actually use the library until midnight without worrying about the last bus home. You can join societies that meet in the evenings. You can attend seminars, workshops, and guest lectures that happen outside regular hours. You can meet up with study groups on short notice.

Research on student engagement shows a clear pattern: physical proximity to campus resources translates directly into higher involvement. Students who have to commute make calculated decisions about which activities are “worth the trip.” Those living on or near campus make those same decisions based on interest rather than logistics.

One student I interviewed—a third-year engineering major—told me she probably would have switched courses if she had not lived in halls during first year. The late-night access to labs and the ability to quickly grab forgotten materials made the difference between struggling and succeeding in her demanding program.

3. Academic Success and Persistence

The data here is striking. First-year students living on campus score, on average, 0.13 grade points higher than their off-campus counterparts. By fourth year, that gap widens to 0.17 points. That might not sound dramatic until you consider grade boundaries—0.17 points can be the difference between degree classifications.

The retention numbers are even more compelling. Students in campus housing return for their second year at rates 5 percentage points higher than those living off-campus. By fourth year, that advantage grows to 8 percentage points. They also graduate approximately 0.15 academic years sooner.

Why does this happen? The research points to several factors, but architectural design plays a surprisingly significant role. Residence halls with communal corridors—where students naturally encounter each other—produce better academic outcomes than apartment-style buildings where students can effectively hide in their rooms. The forced social interaction, as awkward as it sometimes feels, creates informal study networks and academic peer pressure that pushes performance upward.

4. Builds an Immediate Community

Moving to university is terrifying. You are in a new city, you know nobody, and you are expected to suddenly make friends while also handling a more demanding academic workload than you have ever experienced. Shared housing removes at least part of that equation.

You have built-in people in your life immediately. They might not become your best friends—let us be honest, some of them might actively annoy you—but they provide a social foundation. You have someone to eat dinner with, someone to ask where the nearest grocery store is, someone who understands exactly how brutal that statistics assignment is because they are taking the same course.

The architecture of shared spaces matters here too. Communal kitchens and lounges force what researchers call “coincidental meetings.” You bump into people naturally, multiple times a day, which is how friendships actually form. Structured orientation events are fine, but most lasting friendships develop through repeated, low-stakes interactions.

Research on student wellbeing keeps circling back to one concept: belonging. Students who feel they belong somewhere experience notably lower rates of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Shared accommodation, particularly when designed with communal spaces that actually get used, provides what researchers call “belonging to a community of place.”

This aligns with social identity theory—the idea that our group memberships and social connections directly impact our mental health. When students have strong social networks in their living environment, they handle academic stress better. They have people to vent to after a terrible exam, people who understand what they are going through because they are going through it too.

Some universities have started training student residents in basic mental health support. These peer support networks catch problems early, often before someone would consider seeking professional help. It is not a replacement for counseling services, but it fills a gap that formal systems often miss.

5.  Safety, Security, and Structured Support

This is where families tend to focus their concerns, and reasonably so. Purpose-built student accommodation provides levels of security that private rentals simply cannot match. Professional on-site staff, secure entry systems, CCTV monitoring, 24-hour emergency support—these are standard features, not luxury add-ons.

Resident advisors serve multiple functions. They handle practical issues like noise complaints and maintenance problems, but they also provide pastoral care. They notice when students are struggling and can connect them with appropriate resources. For first-year students particularly, having accessible authority figures who are not parents but are responsible adults makes the transition considerably less overwhelming.

Yes, there are rules. Guest policies, alcohol restrictions, noise curfews during exam periods. Some students chafe at these limitations, viewing them as infantilizing. But these structures exist because they work. They create predictable, stable environments where students can actually sleep and study, rather than chaotic free-for-all situations that benefit no one.

6. Practical Skills Benefits and Gains

Shared accommodation forces you to learn things you probably should have learned earlier but did not. Cooking for yourself. Managing laundry before you run out of clean clothes. Budgeting beyond “I have money” or “I do not have money.” Cleaning things before they become biohazards.

But the real learning happens in the negotiation. When you live alone, you can ignore dirty dishes for days if you want. Nobody cares. In shared housing, your choices affect other people, and they will tell you about it. You have to figure out cleaning rotas, agree on temperature settings, decide who is buying shared items like dish soap, navigate the politics of fridge space.

These negotiations are frequently uncomfortable. They require direct communication, compromise, and accepting that other people have different standards than you do. But these are the exact skills that employers say recent graduates lack most often. The ability to have difficult conversations, find middle ground, and maintain working relationships even when you disagree—this is what shared living teaches, whether you realize it or not.

7. Cultural Perks and Global Networking

Modern universities are genuinely international spaces. Some institutions host students from more than 140 countries. In shared accommodation, particularly university-managed halls, you end up living alongside this diversity whether you planned for it or not.

This daily exposure to different cultures, languages, and perspectives is not something you can replicate easily. You learn about different educational systems, religious practices, political views, and cultural assumptions through casual kitchen conversations. You try foods you have never heard of. You pick up phrases in multiple languages. You discover that your “normal” is just one option among many.

The professional value here is significant. Intercultural competence and global awareness are increasingly non-negotiable in graduate employment. Employers operating in international markets need people who can navigate cultural differences without stumbling. Living in genuinely diverse environments for several years provides this training naturally.

8. Developing Advanced Social Skills

Nobody lists “learning to deal with annoying roommates” as a university learning outcome, but maybe they should. Conflict in shared accommodation is inevitable. Someone plays music too loud. Someone does not clean up after cooking. Someone has guests over constantly. Someone is impossibly neat and makes everyone else feel judged.

These situations force difficult conversations. You cannot just avoid someone you live with, not successfully anyway. You have to figure out how to raise concerns without being aggressive, how to listen to criticism without getting defensive, how to find solutions that work for everyone involved rather than just imposing your preferences.

Research on conflict resolution in shared housing suggests that when handled well, these experiences significantly improve social skills. Students learn to choose appropriate times for difficult conversations, focus on specific behaviors rather than attacking character, and practice active listening. They learn the difference between compromise and capitulation.

Residence staff often facilitate these processes, particularly when conflicts escalate beyond what students can handle alone. This mediation exposure provides models for how to navigate disagreements professionally—skills that prove essential in workplaces, romantic relationships, and basically any situation involving other humans.

Conclusion

The evidence tilts heavily toward shared student accommodation, particularly for first and second years. The academic benefits are measurable. The financial advantages are clear in most university cities. The social and developmental opportunities are significant.

But this is not a universal prescription. Some students genuinely function better with more solitude. Some have specific needs—health conditions, family responsibilities, non-traditional student status—that make shared accommodation impractical or inappropriate. Some have the financial resources and organizational skills to make solo living work from day one.

The question is not whether shared accommodation is objectively superior in all cases. The question is whether it provides enough advantages for enough students that it should be the default first consideration rather than an afterthought.

For students starting university, particularly those moving to a new city or country, shared accommodation removes multiple barriers simultaneously. It provides financial predictability when you are learning to manage money. It creates social connections when you know nobody. It offers structure and support during a massive transition. It positions you physically where the action happens.

These benefits compound over time. The friend you meet in first-year halls introduces you to a society that becomes your main social group. The proximity to campus means you attend a guest lecture that shifts your career thinking. The financial savings let you take an unpaid internship that leads to a job offer. The conflict resolution skills you develop help you navigate a difficult team project that determines your final grade.

Start your accommodation search early. Look for places with active social programming, not just fancy amenities. Check what support staff are actually available, not just theoretically employed. Read reviews from current residents, not just glossy marketing materials. Visit if you can, and pay attention to whether communal spaces look actually used or just photogenic.

The housing decision shapes your university experience more than most people realize when they are making it. Choose based on what will actually support your success, not what sounds appealing in theory.