Long Commutes Do Not Explain Why Some College Students Feel Worse Than Others

Commuting has become a routine part of student life in many countries, but a new study from Ireland suggests it is not the hidden driver behind well-being gaps on campus. Using large-scale survey data from the Eurostudent project for Ireland collected in 2022, researchers examined whether housing arrangements and commute times could explain why some groups of college students report poorer mental health than others.

The analysis found lower well-being scores among low socioeconomic status (SES) students compared with high-SES students, and among female students compared with male students. These disparities mirror broader evidence of poor and declining mental health among college students, with pronounced differences across social groups.

When the researchers looked at how students travel and live, clear patterns emerged. On average, commute times were longer for low-SES students than for their high-SES peers. Female students were more likely to live with their parents than male students, a difference that shapes their daily travel to campus.

The relationship between commuting and well-being was not uniform across groups. Examining heterogeneity in the association, the study found little difference by SES, but stronger effects of longer commutes on well-being for female students compared with males. In other words, a lengthy journey to college appears to weigh more heavily on the well-being of women than of men in this dataset.

To probe deeper, the researchers used quantile regression models, which examine relationships across the entire well-being distribution rather than only at the average. These models revealed notable differences in how well-being relates to spatial mobility variables at different points in the distribution for different groups, suggesting that the impact of commuting is not a single uniform effect but varies depending on where students fall on the well-being scale.

Despite this rich pattern of heterogeneity, the study’s central conclusion is strikingly negative. A decomposition analysis, which quantifies how much of a gap between groups can be attributed to specific factors, found that spatial mobility explains only a small proportion of both the SES and gender differences in poor well-being, a binary measure defined using a threshold in the WHO-5 index.

In practical terms, differences in commuting patterns and in the effects of commuting do not explain the large group-level disparities in college student well-being observed in Ireland. Long journeys and living arrangements matter to individual students, and longer commutes are associated with lower well-being, particularly for women, but they account for only a modest share of the observed gaps between social groups.

The findings suggest that policies aimed at improving student mental health by reducing travel burdens, while potentially beneficial for affected individuals, are unlikely to close the well-being gaps between SES and gender groups on their own. The study is based on cross-sectional survey data from Ireland in 2022, so it captures associations at one point in time rather than causal effects over the long term, and its conclusions apply to the Irish higher education context covered by the Eurostudent survey.

As commuting remains an integral part of day-to-day student life, the research adds an important nuance to debates about student mental health: the roots of well-being disparities appear to lie largely beyond the daily journey to campus, pointing researchers and policymakers toward other factors that shape how different groups of students feel.

Subject of Research: The relationship between spatial mobility and group-level disparities in college student well-being in Ireland

Article Title: Does Spatial Mobility Explain Group-Level Disparities in College Student Well-being?

Article References: Cullinan, J. (2026). Does Spatial Mobility Explain Group-Level Disparities in College Student Well-being?. Social Indicators Research, 185(2), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-026-03951-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-026-03951-4

Keywords: college students, well-being, mental health, commuting, spatial mobility, socioeconomic status, gender disparities, WHO-5 Well-Being Index, Eurostudent, Ireland, quantile regression, decomposition analysis