Do students HAVE to live on a university campus their first year?

depends on the school. Smaller ones, junior colleges, that don’t have many dorms might not have that rule. The university here requires it for students under 21 their freshman year only, but if they live at home with parents they can drive back and forth to campus. The university tried to get hard-nosed about it over 15 years ago telling the students that all of them had to live in the dorms their freshman year if they were under 21 and mothers held a protest in front of the president’s house and he let it slide rather than get more bad publicity. The university try to explain it as giving the students a college experience of living in an atmosphere with diverse people. In reality it’s a money-sucking business that gets students or their parents into needless debt.