Ojalá el campus estuviera más cerca de casa, porque cuando llueve se me hace larguísimo el camino.

Because ojalá usually introduces a wish, and Spanish normally uses the subjunctive after it.

Here, the speaker is expressing an unreal or unlikely wish about the present:

• Ojalá el campus estuviera más cerca de casa = I wish the campus were closer to home.

That is why Spanish uses the imperfect subjunctive (estuviera), not the indicative (está).

A useful pattern is:

• Ojalá + present subjunctive for a possible wish
  
  • Ojalá llueva mañana.
• Ojalá + imperfect subjunctive for a contrary-to-fact or unlikely present wish
  
  • Ojalá viviera más cerca.

So in this sentence, estuviera shows that the campus is not close to home, and the speaker wishes it were.

Yes, both are correct.

Spanish has two common forms of the imperfect subjunctive:

• -ra form: estuviera
• -se form: estuviese

In modern Spanish, especially in everyday speech, the -ra form is more common. In Spain, both forms are understood and used, but estuviera usually sounds more natural in ordinary conversation.

So these mean the same thing:

• Ojalá el campus estuviera más cerca...
• Ojalá el campus estuviese más cerca...

There is no real difference in meaning here.

Because cerca is normally followed by de when you say what something is near to.

So:

• cerca de casa = near home
• cerca del trabajo = near work
• cerca de la universidad = near the university

That is just the standard pattern:

• cerca de
• lejos de

So más cerca de casa literally means closer to home.

In Spanish, casa without an article often means home in a personal, familiar sense.

So:

• estar en casa = to be at home
• volver a casa = to go back home
• cerca de casa = close to home

If you say de la casa, you are usually talking about a specific house as a building, not the idea of home.

If you say de mi casa, that is also possible, but it is more explicit:

• más cerca de mi casa = closer to my house / my home

In this sentence, de casa sounds natural and idiomatic because the speaker means home in a general personal sense.

Because in Spanish, campus is normally treated as a masculine noun:

• el campus
• un campus grande

It is a loanword, but its gender is conventionally masculine. The plural is usually:

• los campus

In Spain, campus is very common for a university campus, so el campus sounds perfectly normal.

This is a very common Spanish structure:

• hacérsele algo a alguien
  = to feel/seem ... to someone

So:

• Se me hace largo = It feels long to me / It seems long to me
• Se me hace difícil = It feels difficult to me
• Se me hace raro = It feels strange to me

In your sentence:

• el camino = the journey / the way / the walk
• se me hace = feels to me / seems to me
• larguísimo = extremely long

So:

• se me hace larguísimo el camino
  = the journey feels incredibly long to me

The me shows who experiences that feeling: to me.

The se is part of this idiomatic pronominal construction. It is not reflexive in the usual sense.

Both are possible.

The more neutral order is probably:

• El camino se me hace larguísimo.

But Spanish often moves the noun to the end for style, rhythm, or emphasis:

• Se me hace larguísimo el camino.

Putting el camino at the end can make the sentence sound a bit more expressive, almost as if the speaker is building up to the idea of the journey itself.

So:

• El camino se me hace larguísimo = neutral
• Se me hace larguísimo el camino = slightly more emphatic or natural in some spoken contexts

Yes, basically. Larguísimo is the adjective largo with the suffix -ísimo, which creates an absolute superlative.

• largo = long
• muy largo = very long
• larguísimo = extremely / incredibly / really long

So larguísimo is stronger and more expressive than muy largo.

In this sentence, it is probably not meant as a literal physical measurement only. It means the journey feels painfully long, especially when it rains.

A few similar forms:

• grande → grandísimo
• pequeño → pequeñísimo
• difícil → dificilísimo

Yes, camino can literally mean path, road, or way, but it can also refer more broadly to the journey, the trip, or the route.

In this sentence, el camino is not necessarily a dirt path or a road in the literal sense. It can simply mean:

• the way home
• the route
• the trip
• the walk/commute

So se me hace larguísimo el camino means the trip or route feels extremely long.

Other possible words could be:

• el trayecto = the journey / route
• el recorrido = the route
• el camino = often a more everyday, natural-sounding choice

Because here cuando llueve refers to something that happens habitually or whenever it rains in general.

So:

• cuando llueve = when it rains / whenever it rains

The speaker is talking about a repeated experience:

• every time it rains, the journey feels very long

Spanish uses the indicative after cuando when referring to something habitual, known, or factual.

Compare:

• Cuando llueve, llevo paraguas.
  = Whenever it rains, I take an umbrella.
  (habitual → indicative)

But:

• Cuando llueva, me quedaré en casa.
  = When it rains / when it does rain in the future, I’ll stay home.
  (future event → subjunctive)

So cuando llueve is correct because it means whenever it rains.

Because es larguísimo describes the journey as an objective quality, while se me hace larguísimo emphasizes the speaker’s personal experience of it.

Compare:

• El camino es larguísimo.
  = The journey is extremely long.
  (sounds more objective)

• El camino se me hace larguísimo.
  = The journey feels extremely long to me.
  (subjective perception)

In your sentence, the speaker is talking about how the trip feels, especially when it rains. So se me hace is more natural because it conveys that personal impression.

It is similar to the difference between:

• The movie is long.
• The movie feels long.

The me is an indirect object pronoun meaning to me.

So:

• se me hace largo = it feels long to me
• se te hace largo = it feels long to you
• se le hace largo = it feels long to him/her

You can change that pronoun depending on who has the impression:

• Se nos hace largo el invierno.
  = Winter feels long to us.
• Se le hace difícil madrugar.
  = Getting up early feels difficult to him/her.

So in your sentence, me tells us that this is the speaker’s personal feeling.

Yes. A learner might hear simpler alternatives such as:

• Ojalá el campus estuviera más cerca de casa, porque cuando llueve el camino se me hace muy largo.
• Ojalá el campus estuviera más cerca de casa, porque cuando llueve el trayecto se me hace larguísimo.
• Ojalá viviera más cerca del campus, porque cuando llueve se me hace larguísimo el camino.

These all express nearly the same idea.

The original sentence sounds natural and expressive because of two features:

• ojalá + imperfect subjunctive for a wish
• se me hace larguísimo for a strong personal impression

So even if it is not the simplest possible version, it is very idiomatic Spanish.

Nothing in it is exclusively from Spain, but it does fit very naturally with Spain Spanish.

A couple of points:

• el campus is very common in Spain when talking about university life.
• larguísimo and se me hace... are also very common, natural everyday Spanish in Spain.

Speakers in many Spanish-speaking countries would understand and use this sentence too. So it is not strongly regional, just standard and idiomatic.