This qualitative pilot study examines pro-environmental behavioral changes as university students transition from family homes and high school to living on college campuses. We examine if, and how pro-environmental behavioral changes take place when students adapt to living alone on university campuses, which are often hailed as epicenters of environmental advocacy and education. We further examine the motivations for these changes including, family, and school influences. Using data from focus groups, we find that many students arrive on campuses with a strong commitment to sustainability and pro-environmental behaviors often ingrained in them from high school or family. Given the pressures of campus life and their studies, students’ behavioral changes often reflect the practicality, costs, and convenience of institutional arrangements. Our findings offer a clearer view on how institutional policies impact individual behaviors and how to further promote pro-environmental behaviors for students transitioning to university campus living.  Through these focus groups, we discovered that students rely on Penn’s institutional behaviors to inform, direct, and support their individual behaviors.  Furthermore, Penn policies that create higher transaction costs were detrimental to students' pro-environmental behaviors.  Indeed, the lack of institutional infrastructure to continue conservation and recycling efforts played a major role in students' abandonment of pro-environmental behaviors on campus, contrasting how many families and high schools seemed to more successfully institute an infrastructure and education system that allowed for ease in the implementation of these pro-environmental behaviors.