The fourth-year game design student at Abertay University was at home with her family thousands of miles away in Thailand when she discovered the owner of her Scottish studio flat had abruptly gone bust. I don’t know what to do,” she says. Sriwiboonrattan was forced to act quickly to secure new housing for the academic year, which has just begun, paying £850 to have her possessions moved.
Her sudden upheaval was emblematic of the wider crisis in student housing. While UK universities face a financial crisis, providers of accommodation are grappling with falling international student numbers, a cost of living squeeze and higher borrowing and build costs, exacerbated by the Iran war, affecting upgrades at older properties. A string of tower blocks known as purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), targeted at more affluent students, have run into financial difficulty.
It had been touted as the ultimate student living: smart city centre blocks with gyms, cinemas and rooftop terraces have sprung up across the UK. A world away from the traditional image of dirty and dingy shared digs, the flats have offered a spacious alternative for their relatively affluent residents – often international students. Now, some sit half empty, and several schemes have gone bust.
Sriwiboonrattan was among nearly 70 students in Dundee who were left scrambling to find accommodation in late July after the collapse of the owner of Marketgait Apartments, a 116-room city centre block that had a concierge and a shared games lounge with a pool table. Despite the boom in housing developed by financial institutions in recent years, many students heading off to university this term faced a different dilemma. Rents at the tower blocks have grown much faster than maintenance loans for British students, leaving PSBAs financially out of reach.
Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis has put financial pressure on students seeking university-owned or managed accommodation, while rising rents have hit those wanting to live in shared private rentals. Underlining the scale of the shortage of affordable housing, the students’ union in Bristol included an emergency support number for the housing charity Shelter in an email to new students. At PSBAs, the national average rent, excluding London, is £191 a week including bills, according to the website StuRents.
At the top end, en suite rooms in Manchester command a weekly rent of £170 to £320, whereas in London, en suite rooms are £250 to £650 a week, and studio apartments in Bloomsbury cost between £550 and £800 plus. He lived in university-owned dorms for the first two years of his aviation management degree and now shares a two-bedroom privately rented flat with a friend. On campus, he paid £660 rent including bills a month during the first year, which rose by 10% in his second year; now he pays £700 rent a month, excluding bills.
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