When did student accommodation become stupidly expensive?

paulcaye

We have been looking at student accommodation for one our children who will be going in September, it is starting at £155 per week for halls.  Granted they look pretty swish in comparison to what was available back in the day - or even when our eldest was there a couple of years ago. 

The kicker for it all is they want paying for 51 weeks of the year, when the course is less than 9 months of teaching time (minus any holidays).   Which is just shy of £9000 a year and that is for the cheapest one.  It is a four year course, fun times.

Looks like no new kit for a few years. 

Just a small rant and didn't get sweary -> although not sure this is a good thing. 

Cheers,

Greatape

....on top of tuition fees and other expenses. 

It's insane. 

RaymondLin

2004 I paid £75 or £85 I think....a week, ensuite, 8 to a flat.  I thought that was expensive.  I don't remember paying for 51 weeks though, I hope you get to stay for the entire summer holiday if you pay for 51 weeks.  We had to leave by mid June as I recall we went to Glastonbury and then we went back home and not back to Halls.

Hattigol

When did student all accommodation become stupidly expensive?

FTFY.

BluesLover

House prices are now bonkers, so all accommodation goes up too. We'd noticed (pre covid) how self catering holiday accommodation had shot up in the last few years, so maybe student places are the same? My father in law lives in a little Victorian house near Southampton university, and a few years ago most houses were multiple occupancy student let. Then the uni went on a building binge, and put up lots of blocks for students. His street now has lots of to let signs, and no students! 

EricTheWeary

I can’t remember what my son pays but I know it’s at the cheaper end but EVH so seems crazy at times. Part of the reason for Leeds and one of the attractions of some universities is cheaper rent which seems a slightly absurd way to choose your degree. 

The halls he had in his first year and now in his second are surprisingly nice; it’s just a shame that so many of the students treat the places like shit. Which I guess in part then does add to the high rents. 

thecolourbox

Is it because with the loans they get saddled with, they have no hope of ever actually paying it back so the landlords see it as free money?

mgaw

after watching my 2 eldest go through Uni whilst paying huge accomodation fees i concluded that someone is ripping them off on a grand scale, 9k represented a room in a dorm with a shared kitchen, ffs.  

Kittyfrisk

Many Universities own the student accommodation, thus keeping more money in the system.
Durham University has purchased & converted almost all available property within the city area, as well as building new purpose built accommodation. Awful place now for any non students that still live there.

Stuckfast

Come to Hull, it's as cheap as chips to live here.

You could probably buy somewhere for not much more than the total cost of your four years' accommodation!

fretmeister

paulcaye said:

We have been looking at student accommodation for one our children who will be going in September, it is starting at £155 per week for halls.  Granted they look pretty swish in comparison to what was available back in the day - or even when our eldest was there a couple of years ago. 

The kicker for it all is they want paying for 51 weeks of the year, when the course is less than 9 months of teaching time (minus any holidays).   Which is just shy of £9000 a year and that is for the cheapest one.  It is a four year course, fun times.

Looks like no new kit for a few years. 

Just a small rant and didn't get sweary -> although not sure this is a good thing. 

Cheers,

If you are going to pay that much you might as well buy a flat instead.

paulcaye

fretmeister said:

paulcaye said:

We have been looking at student accommodation for one our children who will be going in September, it is starting at £155 per week for halls.  Granted they look pretty swish in comparison to what was available back in the day - or even when our eldest was there a couple of years ago. 

The kicker for it all is they want paying for 51 weeks of the year, when the course is less than 9 months of teaching time (minus any holidays).   Which is just shy of £9000 a year and that is for the cheapest one.  It is a four year course, fun times.

Looks like no new kit for a few years. 

Just a small rant and didn't get sweary -> although not sure this is a good thing. 

Cheers,

If you are going to pay that much you might as well buy a flat instead.

Just been looking at that and it might be an option, especially if a 2 bed then we can get someone to contribute to the bills etc. 

Kittyfrisk

fretmeister said:

paulcaye said:

We have been looking at student accommodation for one our children who will be going in September, it is starting at £155 per week for halls.  Granted they look pretty swish in comparison to what was available back in the day - or even when our eldest was there a couple of years ago. 

The kicker for it all is they want paying for 51 weeks of the year, when the course is less than 9 months of teaching time (minus any holidays).   Which is just shy of £9000 a year and that is for the cheapest one.  It is a four year course, fun times.

Looks like no new kit for a few years. 

Just a small rant and didn't get sweary -> although not sure this is a good thing. 

Cheers,

If you are going to pay that much you might as well buy a flat instead.

Which is exactly what happens in Durham. Mummy & Daddy buy the beloved a flat (usually a house) then recoup revenue by letting rooms & then selling later. Result, no available or affordable housing stocks left within miles.
It's just the way the world is, the same as traditional seaside towns being hollowed out by second home holiday owners, but I don't have to like it 

crunchman

When I was a student, you didn't pay for the summer holidays, but the university rented the rooms out for other purposes over the summer.  That seems a better arrangement.  This is somewhere the government needs to step in.  It's not fair to charge students when they aren't there.

There is a bigger issue of the whole student funding system though.  There is a huge black hole in the student loan finances that will never get repaid.  Rather than send 50% of the population to do a degree for a lot of them them to end up working in McDonalds or a call centre, go back to the old system we send the 20% or so who are academically suited for a rigorous degree.  We could then afford to give them grants and fund them properly.

Rocker

Slightly off topic but self catering in Rye is not far off the cost of one of the better B&Bs in the area. And B&B give a cooked breakfast and your bed is made!

RaymondLin

crunchman said:

When I was a student, you didn't pay for the summer holidays, but the university rented the rooms out for other purposes over the summer.  That seems a better arrangement.  This is somewhere the government needs to step in.  It's not fair to charge students when they aren't there.

There is a bigger issue of the whole student funding system though.  There is a huge black hole in the student loan finances that will never get repaid.  Rather than send 50% of the population to do a degree for a lot of them them to end up working in McDonalds or a call centre, go back to the old system we send the 20% or so who are academically suited for a rigorous degree.  We could then afford to give them grants and fund them properly.

Yup. you can contact student accommodation services at Oxford and stay there if you have summer seminars etc. or me, shoot a wedding for one of their Aluminis.   

sweave

Both kids at uni, so I feel your pain. Lack of govt funding means unis have to recoup as much as possible from everywhere else and run many aspects on a commercial basis. E.g. have you looked at gym costs yet?
Son at Exeter and daughter at Cambridge and you'll probably be surprised that Cambridge is cheaper with accomodation under 5k, whereas Exeter over 6k. In Exeter, even going into shared non-uni digs is at least £125 a week + bills
Btw, 51weeks @155 = 7905, so you are one grand better off than you thought.

exocet

Much like with leasing where car companies came to known as finance companies with a manufacturing subsidiary; Universities are becoming property companies with an education unit attached.

Both of my children went through the £155 per week but that was for 1st year only. Subsequent years were lower cost via shared private housing. 

Kittyfrisk

RaymondLin said:

crunchman said:

When I was a student, you didn't pay for the summer holidays, but the university rented the rooms out for other purposes over the summer.  That seems a better arrangement.  This is somewhere the government needs to step in.  It's not fair to charge students when they aren't there.

There is a bigger issue of the whole student funding system though.  There is a huge black hole in the student loan finances that will never get repaid.  Rather than send 50% of the population to do a degree for a lot of them them to end up working in McDonalds or a call centre, go back to the old system we send the 20% or so who are academically suited for a rigorous degree.  We could then afford to give them grants and fund them properly.

Yup. you can contact student accommodation services at Oxford and stay there if you have summer seminars etc. or me, shoot a wedding for one of their Aluminis.   

Yes, this happens a lot, it's a win win situation for the Universities.
As @crunchman touches on, going to Uni. is now just part of an expected progression for young people, not about being in the grove of academe 
It all used to be all about Education, but as a fairly high up person in the University where I used to work observed "we're a business now".

Snap

Is this for a London place? My eldest was at uni in Sheffield, we paid about 450 a month for a room in a shared house, including bills. Halls were about 5 and half k for the academic year. Both of these were for 40 odd week leases, 10 months i think from memory. All the accommodation was distinctly average. That's being diplomatic. 

From memory, when we were doing the uni circuit, most cities had similar rent costs - that was looking at Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle. I do know that London is a significant outlier in price.  Student rent is a complete racket, way way overpriced vs standard rentals.

If you have the deposit. buy to let rental mortgage rates are very low at moment. 2-3% depending on the deal. 

Greatape

sweave said:

Both kids at uni, so I feel your pain. Lack of govt funding means unis have to recoup as much as possible from everywhere else and run many aspects on a commercial basis. E.g. have you looked at gym costs yet?
Son at Exeter and daughter at Cambridge and you'll probably be surprised that Cambridge is cheaper with accomodation under 5k, whereas Exeter over 6k. In Exeter, even going into shared non-uni digs is at least £125 a week + bills
Btw, 51weeks @155 = 7905, so you are one grand better off than you thought.

Someone is making a lot of money in Exeter. The constant procession of new student accommodation builds is a sore point down this way. And there's loads of it. 

A friend of a friend tells me that overseas (aka Chinese) students pay these inflated costs with ease.