Campus cooperatives bring the principles of member ownership and member control to the campus setting. Students, faculty, and others form cooperative enterprises to provide goods and services at a low cost such as housing, health food, textbooks, dry cleaning, or bicycle repair. Campus cooperatives differ from non-campus cooperatives in that they frequently place a higher value on member participation.

This emphasis on participation allows members to develop technical and leadership skills. It also makes student co-ops a great place to meet people. The majority of student cooperatives are housing cooperatives: cooperative dorms, small houses, high-rise apartments, and townhouses. Student housing co-ops provide their services in response to very low vacancy rates in many university areas.

University towns are known for the high number of students usually competing for a small number of units. This usually leads to overcrowding, badly maintained property, high rents, and general abuse of student tenants. By limiting membership to students, cooperatives help to ensure the availability of fair and affordable student housing.