When 18-year-old Jessie Smith earned the top grades she needed last month to study at Manchester University, she was delighted. She didn’t know then that all the university’s student halls would be entirely full, and she would be compelled and forced to receive accommodation in Liverpool.

Jessie’s mother, Sarah Smith, who works as a PA in Sheffield, stated that she feels “frightened and disgusted” about her daughter living so far from the university. Manchester has delivered £100 a week in order to cover commuting costs, but she feels this misses the point. She does not want her daughter to be a 40-minute train ride away from the city.

She said there are these incredible and fun activities in freshers’ week. I don’t want her stressing about how to get home afterward. She further said that university is about getting to know people, and how can she do that if she’s not even in Manchester?

Smith is not the only student. A week ago, Manchester guaranteed it still had more than 350 freshers waiting for a place in halls in the city. Last week, after proposing £2,500 to anyone within commuting distance, who would swap to living at home, a spokesperson for the university stated there were now 75 freshers still waiting for somewhere to live.

He added that they were prioritizing working on more support for students like Jessie living in Liverpool and would be connecting them with a hall in Manchester. The university is speeding to finish refurbishing alternative accommodation and says it is very likely that students will be able to move into the city in the upcoming months.

Manchester Metropolitan University has provided £100 a week to first years ready to accept accommodation in Liverpool or Huddersfield. But, well-known though the city is among students, Manchester University is prompt to point out that this isn’t just a provincial matter. The university told students and parents that there had been phenomenal demand for university accommodation across the UK this year.

Universities have long been anticipating the demographic overflow in the number of 18-year-olds that is now underway. But Manchester points out that they were not ready for the pandemic and three years in which far more students accomplished the high A-level marks they ask for. Pressure from record results last year represented many students delaying their places this year. New students in cities including Bristol, Glasgow, and Edinburgh are informing similar apprehensive struggles to find somewhere to live.

Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank, Nick Hillman, stated that students who find last-minute places via clearing miss the boat on university-owned accommodation – but now the problem is expanding for those who accept venues months before. He added when I speak to sixth-formers, I always say think as much about your accommodation as your course, as that’s where you meet people, interact with them and make friends. According to the research, Nick also pointed out that commuter students have worse experiences and are more likely to drop out. He added that you have to be a resilient student with a powerful social network to cope with being housed in a different city.

Dr. Helen Spencer, an expert in archeological glass from East Lothian, referred to an appeal on Twitter for an extra room for her 17-year-old daughter Jess. She stated that it had been a hard few weeks, with lots of tears. After a stressful three years where she performed well and worked so hard to get the grades she required and looked forward to a new start, she is devastated.

Spencer attempted to help her daughter find a private student houseshare or flat, but with enormous competition for a dropping number of rentals in the city, they have had no luck. Strathclyde freshers’ week has already commenced, and this weekend Jess will be proceeding into a spare room delivered for a few weeks by a friend of a friend and have no idea where she will live after that. Spencer added that she is nervous about moving into someone else’s house and not having other students near her, not being able to have the first-year halls adventure of meeting new friends.

A spokesperson for Strathclyde confirmed that all university rooms were now entirely full and students should look for private options. She stated- We appreciate the frustration and trouble being created due to the unprecedented demand for housing this year and the lack of university and private sector accommodation available across the UK, integrated with high demand in the private rental sector in Glasgow.

Glasgow University notified new students in August that they would not be guaranteed accommodation this year, and those living within commuting distance were denied housing. The university said this was due to advancement in the need for places coupled with a significant contraction in Glasgow’s private rental market.

Eamon Mcguill, a father from Oldham, said his daughter and two friends have nowhere to live for her first year studying philosophy at Glasgow after the private flat they thought they had reserved fell through. The three freshers are now preparing to sleep on a family member’s floor in Edinburgh for a few weeks and commute to the university while they keep exploring. He added, Of course, it’s all worse for her, but as a parent, you worry. I’ve got no consolation that she is safe and has her own space to go to.

The annual scrum to ensure student rentals is not new. But universities and campaigners say it is getting more inadequate as landlords pull out of the student market and swap to running more lucrative Airbnbs and holiday lets.

When Hannah McGill, a sociology student, reserved her first personally rented student flat in Edinburgh in 2019, it felt like winning a race. She said that there was so much competition as people used to have friends waiting outside the office so they could text them from inside the viewing and defeat everyone else. She and her friends planned to stay on for their master’s degrees in the upcoming term. But earlier this year, their landlord suddenly increased the rent by more than £100 each, forcing them to give up their lease.

While walking past the building a few months later, McGill witnessed a key box next to what had once been her front door. Their student home was currently an Airbnb holiday let. They had become the targets of what campaigners call a silent eviction in which landlords force and push residents out with untenable rent expansions so that they can transform their properties into holiday lets.

Last month, St Andrews University blamed a rental shortage on an expansion in Airbnbs and recommended forthcoming students commute from Dundee, about an hour away.

Elle Glenny, a spokesperson for Scotland’s tenants’ union Living Rent, stated that the shortage was the outcome of a housing market that prioritizes the advantage of landlords over citizens’ need for a home.

At the University of the West of England in Bristol, over 500 first-year students have been on a waiting list for university rooms after a large number of applications. Students have been provided accommodation in Newport, across the border in Wales, with travel costs included.

Professor Steve West, UWE’s vice chancellor and president of Universities UK, commented that Bristol is a well-known and vibrant city with a deliberate lack of rented accommodation. He explained that students suffer from growing rental prices and the harsh practice of landlords demanding half or a full year’s rent upfront.

West added that Bristol city council has capped where planning permissions would be granted for student accommodation which puts arm-twisting pressure on new-build developments.

Ben Giles, managing director of Balloon Letting Company in Bristol, stated that they have been getting hundreds of calls every week from anguished students since August. He added that When we put up a student property now, the phone rings directly away and doesn’t stop for about six hours. We are even placing students in properties in Bath.

News Source: The Guardian