I really don’t understand how nothing is being done about this. Similar stories are happening at so many universities across this country, yet no one is power has even acknowledged the issue as far as I’m aware.
Is the government not commenting as they think that would give them some of the responsibility to fix the problem? Universities seem to be doing everything possible to push the blame onto everyone else so they are reluctant to do anything either.
>The university has said demand for rooms “continues to be substantially ahead of expectation both in Glasgow and more broadly across the UK”.
That’s what happens when Schools push the narrative that university is your only option. It was the same bollocks for me 15 years ago. Secondly universities would rather get as many bums on seats to get that sweet grant money.
Worth noting if they quit they likely still owe the university their entire fee schedule.
It’s not telling them to quit, it’s telling them not to enrol or register, logically this is a sensible thing to do, if they register and enrol and then are not able to attend university due to lack of accommodation and as a result drop out of uni they will lose their entitlement to future student funding.
>The university has said demand for rooms “continues to be substantially ahead of expectation both in Glasgow and more broadly across the UK”.
What complete bullshit. The university knows exactly how many places they give out on their courses so should know exactly how much demand they are driving into local housing.
[A quick google shows Glasgow make their enrolment data from 2012-13 to present publicly available.](https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/planning/qv/basic/b1/) Enrolment has risen every year with the rise having it’s biggest spikes in the last two years. From 23,010 students 9 years ago to 38,204 students in 2022. An increase of over 5,000 between the two most recent academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22 (2022-23 figures haven’t been released yet, I guess they have to wait and see how many homeless people drop out). Hundreds of students can’t find accommodation after they created 5000 new places in one year. Can’t be any connection there at all.
If I can google this data in 5 minutes to scrutinize their claims why can’t the journalists at the BBC?
My son had a place at Bristol Uni this year (on clearing) +700 students on waiting list for accommodation or go private, which was £1,200-1,500 / month rent.
Decided to have a gap year.
I was in a pretty similar situation after taking a leave of absence. I spent about 4 months applying for whatever accommodation I could remotely afford, but it just went so fast. Quite often there’d be 10-20 people viewing the same room. Landlords know this and seem to be jacking up their rents, £130-150/week seems to be common now. The one time I was able to get an agreement the landlord demanded 3 months rent up front which I just didn’t have.
If I didnt have parents who lived a couple towns over I would’ve had to drop out of uni. I could’ve wound up homeless. The entire situation is just fucked, I don’t know how uni’s think its acceptable to admit more students than there are rooms available.
When I went to Glasgow Caledonian University, I was told to move into Glasgow when I told SAAS/the uni that I couldn’t afford to commute anymore.
Problem being in order to save enough money to get a deposit on a flat, I would have to skip going to uni for months. So by the time I would have enough for a deposit, I’d be kicked out of uni.
And then I’d be waiting for fuck knows how long for SAAS to up my loan (if they did at all) to afford rent (I was only getting like £150/month from them and my commute cost £120/month).
Maybe this is too obvious but why aren’t universities telling students to go home and study by distance? Here in Ukraine we did this during covid and we are dong it during war as well. If there isn’t enough accommodations then just tell students to study from home. Better option than not finishing your degree I would think and its not difficult to stream a lecture over zoom
Now I might be crazy, but the universities are pretty big, surely you could just camp out in a lab?
This may not be something the University can resolve unless they got a time machine and went back in time to accept fewer students, I’m living in Glasgow and there’s a massive shortage of rental properties across the city at the moment that’s hitting everyone. The only thing I can think that the University could do at this point would be to rent properties well outside the city and pay for a commuter bus in.
Scottish government laughing at everyone blaming the tories
I’m sure the Scottish Government will be right onto this…..
Universities and local governments rarely communicate with each other, and more often than not have piss poor coordination when it comes to infrastructure and housing needs.
Not to mention students don’t pay council tax, so you’ve essentially got an anchor institution in your community with a blank cheque to increase population pressures. Sure, universities are part of Community Planning Partnerships after years of being excluded – for all the good that CPP’s actually achieve.
Students are great for a local economy, but there needs to be an honest conversation and balance to be struck vs community needs, amenities etc. Affordable, purpose-built student accommodation can be rolled out by the council – free’s up private-let HMOs to become family homes.
Just another business offering a product, for profit, not delivering, and expecting society or the consumer to pick up the pieces. 550,000 international students, paying billions, meanwhile working class and poor indigenous students can’t get a flat to live in ,while they desperately try to better themselves and claw their way out of a rigged system.
I went to Glasgow uni and the lack of support generally is astounding.
Not seeing any mention of remote learning if you unfortunately can’t get a room why can’t all these courses be done virtually online (not idea but better than having to drop out) COVID should have provided this option
I don’t understand how we got to this point. We are a developed country, how is it that we can’t even find places to house people? It’s gotten so bad that people can’t even move to study in their chosen town.
Funny enough the Russell Group who own GU are Tory supporters.
lmao.
“Have you considered not doing the thing you’ve spent your entire life preparing yourself to do and torpedo your future prospects? I *really* don’t want to have to build a flat :/ c’mon man, help a bro out”
tell me the countries falling apart without telling me the countries falling apart
The Scottish government have lead a pretty full on attack on landlords over the past 5/10 years which is certainly reducing the supply of flats.
Airbnb is a lot easier so lots moving over to that.
The SNP need to work with the landlords to increase the supply of flat but they definitely won’t and will just keep blaming them.
It seems harsh for the BBC to blame the university – the university is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but is giving good advice, because people who complete enrolment are then committed to paying fees etc and may forfeit their right to defer their course etc, making it MUCH harder to get back into university later
“Consider deferring or withdrawing” *is* the correct advice, and the university would be remiss in their duty to their students if they just let people rack up fees etc
23 comments
I really don’t understand how nothing is being done about this. Similar stories are happening at so many universities across this country, yet no one is power has even acknowledged the issue as far as I’m aware.
Is the government not commenting as they think that would give them some of the responsibility to fix the problem? Universities seem to be doing everything possible to push the blame onto everyone else so they are reluctant to do anything either.
>The university has said demand for rooms “continues to be substantially ahead of expectation both in Glasgow and more broadly across the UK”.
That’s what happens when Schools push the narrative that university is your only option. It was the same bollocks for me 15 years ago. Secondly universities would rather get as many bums on seats to get that sweet grant money.
Worth noting if they quit they likely still owe the university their entire fee schedule.
It’s not telling them to quit, it’s telling them not to enrol or register, logically this is a sensible thing to do, if they register and enrol and then are not able to attend university due to lack of accommodation and as a result drop out of uni they will lose their entitlement to future student funding.
>The university has said demand for rooms “continues to be substantially ahead of expectation both in Glasgow and more broadly across the UK”.
What complete bullshit. The university knows exactly how many places they give out on their courses so should know exactly how much demand they are driving into local housing.
[A quick google shows Glasgow make their enrolment data from 2012-13 to present publicly available.](https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/planning/qv/basic/b1/) Enrolment has risen every year with the rise having it’s biggest spikes in the last two years. From 23,010 students 9 years ago to 38,204 students in 2022. An increase of over 5,000 between the two most recent academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22 (2022-23 figures haven’t been released yet, I guess they have to wait and see how many homeless people drop out). Hundreds of students can’t find accommodation after they created 5000 new places in one year. Can’t be any connection there at all.
If I can google this data in 5 minutes to scrutinize their claims why can’t the journalists at the BBC?
My son had a place at Bristol Uni this year (on clearing) +700 students on waiting list for accommodation or go private, which was £1,200-1,500 / month rent.
Decided to have a gap year.
I was in a pretty similar situation after taking a leave of absence. I spent about 4 months applying for whatever accommodation I could remotely afford, but it just went so fast. Quite often there’d be 10-20 people viewing the same room. Landlords know this and seem to be jacking up their rents, £130-150/week seems to be common now. The one time I was able to get an agreement the landlord demanded 3 months rent up front which I just didn’t have.
If I didnt have parents who lived a couple towns over I would’ve had to drop out of uni. I could’ve wound up homeless. The entire situation is just fucked, I don’t know how uni’s think its acceptable to admit more students than there are rooms available.
When I went to Glasgow Caledonian University, I was told to move into Glasgow when I told SAAS/the uni that I couldn’t afford to commute anymore.
Problem being in order to save enough money to get a deposit on a flat, I would have to skip going to uni for months. So by the time I would have enough for a deposit, I’d be kicked out of uni.
And then I’d be waiting for fuck knows how long for SAAS to up my loan (if they did at all) to afford rent (I was only getting like £150/month from them and my commute cost £120/month).
Maybe this is too obvious but why aren’t universities telling students to go home and study by distance? Here in Ukraine we did this during covid and we are dong it during war as well. If there isn’t enough accommodations then just tell students to study from home. Better option than not finishing your degree I would think and its not difficult to stream a lecture over zoom
Now I might be crazy, but the universities are pretty big, surely you could just camp out in a lab?
This may not be something the University can resolve unless they got a time machine and went back in time to accept fewer students, I’m living in Glasgow and there’s a massive shortage of rental properties across the city at the moment that’s hitting everyone. The only thing I can think that the University could do at this point would be to rent properties well outside the city and pay for a commuter bus in.
Scottish government laughing at everyone blaming the tories
I’m sure the Scottish Government will be right onto this…..
Universities and local governments rarely communicate with each other, and more often than not have piss poor coordination when it comes to infrastructure and housing needs.
Not to mention students don’t pay council tax, so you’ve essentially got an anchor institution in your community with a blank cheque to increase population pressures. Sure, universities are part of Community Planning Partnerships after years of being excluded – for all the good that CPP’s actually achieve.
Students are great for a local economy, but there needs to be an honest conversation and balance to be struck vs community needs, amenities etc. Affordable, purpose-built student accommodation can be rolled out by the council – free’s up private-let HMOs to become family homes.
Just another business offering a product, for profit, not delivering, and expecting society or the consumer to pick up the pieces. 550,000 international students, paying billions, meanwhile working class and poor indigenous students can’t get a flat to live in ,while they desperately try to better themselves and claw their way out of a rigged system.
I went to Glasgow uni and the lack of support generally is astounding.
Not seeing any mention of remote learning if you unfortunately can’t get a room why can’t all these courses be done virtually online (not idea but better than having to drop out) COVID should have provided this option
I don’t understand how we got to this point. We are a developed country, how is it that we can’t even find places to house people? It’s gotten so bad that people can’t even move to study in their chosen town.
Funny enough the Russell Group who own GU are Tory supporters.
lmao.
“Have you considered not doing the thing you’ve spent your entire life preparing yourself to do and torpedo your future prospects? I *really* don’t want to have to build a flat :/ c’mon man, help a bro out”
tell me the countries falling apart without telling me the countries falling apart
The Scottish government have lead a pretty full on attack on landlords over the past 5/10 years which is certainly reducing the supply of flats.
Airbnb is a lot easier so lots moving over to that.
The SNP need to work with the landlords to increase the supply of flat but they definitely won’t and will just keep blaming them.
It seems harsh for the BBC to blame the university – the university is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but is giving good advice, because people who complete enrolment are then committed to paying fees etc and may forfeit their right to defer their course etc, making it MUCH harder to get back into university later
“Consider deferring or withdrawing” *is* the correct advice, and the university would be remiss in their duty to their students if they just let people rack up fees etc