The current university housing arrangement, in terms of costs and funding, is increasingly becoming unviable for many. IF volunteer, Max Whelton, taps into his personal experience to investigate just how bad the situation is for students.
The student housing crisis
Student housing is increasingly becoming unaffordable within our current student loan system. According to data from Student Crowd, between 2019 and 2023, the student population increased by 400,000, while the number of available student-housing units decreased by 19,000. That is a loss of up to 95,000 bedrooms, which is over ten times the number of bedrooms built for student accommodation in 2022. The pressure of increasing demand yet declining supply is culminating in a student property market that is increasingly pricey and poses a threat to the accessibility of higher education for the poorest students.
The cost of student housing in Bristol
As I approach my final year of undergraduate study at the University of Bristol, I’ve witnessed a steep rise in accommodation costs year after year. In my first year, I opted for one of the more affordable student halls, which still set me back £6,500. In my subsequent years, I have paid £8,400 for a mice-infested, six-person flat and £9,000 for a room in a mouldy, crumbling house. My experience is not unique: the average annual cost of student housing in Bristol as of 2023–2024 was £9,200.
Bristol is not the only city with large higher education institutions facing this problem. Recent IF analysis found that many of the local authorities (LAs) facing the largest rent increases are those whose demographics are below the median age and areas with large student populations. In fact, a report published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Unipol selected 10 university cities excluding London and Edinburgh and found that the average annual rent was just under £7,500, an increase of over 14% since 2021–2022.
The cost of housing has had other negative effects on students such as Bristol students having to move further out into local suburban housing and even other cities such as Newport thereby increasing travel costs to education centres and the doubling up in rooms to manage housing costs. The severity of the situation is epitomised by the fact that 18% of students used a food bank in the 2022–2023 academic year, up 8% on the previous year. It is imperative that governments address this issue to ensure that higher education remains accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial situation.
The funding for student housing
Whilst the cost of student housing is soaring, student incomes are largely stagnating. Since beginning university in 2022, my maintenance loan has only increase by 5.3%, a mere £243 rise and three times slower than the rate at which rent is increasing. In fact, it is forecasted that in 2023–2024, the average maintenance loan will be lower than the average rent, even before accounting for the costs of food and bills. Given that this has occurred in the same period as a cost-of-living crisis, it is no wonder why students are turning to other means of funding.
Students are working more to help fund themselves at university. A Department for Education report released in 2023 found that the proportion of full-time students working has increased from 52% to 58%. Those students who are working are averaging three more hours per week compared to 2014. This is because full-time students are increasingly becoming reliant on income from paid work, which accounted for 24% of their total income between 2021–2022 compared to only 14% between 2014–2015. This is detrimental to the quality of education students are leaving university with and disproportionately affects those whose families cannot afford to cover the shortfall between maintenance loans and actual living costs.
Students working during university is nothing new. However, the number of hours students are having to work to cover the cost of essentials during term time is increasing and a new phenomena that previous generations did not have to balance with their academic study thanks to the wonder that was a “grant”. Basically, anyone over the age of 55 years was given free money, irrespective of family wealth, to cover their living costs. It seems particularly intergenerationally unfair that the majority of those people creating the student finance system literally received their entire university educations for free.
Student jobs are also becoming harder for students to find due to increasing competition. Despite having experience as a football referee and as a McDonalds employee, of the 80 jobs I applied to in Bristol this Summer, I received three responses. One of the jobs I received a response from was a start-up brewery offering three six-hour shifts a week for July and August. Despite this not being enough to cover the difference between means-tested student maintenance loans and actual living costs, which lots of students face in Bristol, I was told in my interview that that there were 90 applicants. We risk creating a new precariat student class where students simply cannot afford to continue their studies because of lack of outside employment opportunities. The government needs to reconsider the real costs of living facing students and increase student maintenance loans to a fairer level so that all students have equitable access to higher education.
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