Influx of international students to cause housing shortages for university students across UK

LONDON Sept 3: Student housing shortages are going to get worse in several cities across the UK, the Independent reported. Student housing charity Unipol has warned that many students will struggle to find affordable housing this year and that in some cases, supply will ‘simply dry up’.

The charity’s comments come as school leavers across the UK are preparing to start university in September after receiving their results this summer.

In a blog for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) think tank, Martin Blakey, CEO of Unipol, wrote that the main driver for growth and rising accommodation demand is international students – both undergraduates and postgraduates, but mostly postgraduates on one-year taught courses.

He said that 29,048 new student rooms were created across the UK in 2020, but by this year that had fallen to 13,543 and some of those were old buildings being brought back into use.

He further noted that the number of international students numbers increased by some 276,110 between 2019 and 2022, a 72 percent increase over the period. “Of these, 63 percent were taught postgraduates. By definition, all international students have an accommodation need,” the blog read.

“Student numbers from China are still rising, but more slowly, and their pattern of distribution continues to shift, as they consolidate in higher-tariff universities. Meanwhile, in the postgraduate taught segment, the figures show major growth in students from India and Nigeria, concentrated in post-1992 lower- and middle-tariff institutions,” Mr Blakey wrote.

The charity predicts possible student housing shortages in Brighton, Bristol, Durham, Glasgow, Manchester, York, Bath, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Lincoln, and Salford this year.

In recent years, some universities have struggled to provide a room near campus for new students, offering them housing in neighbouring cities instead, as per BBC.

Nick Hillman, director of Hepi, said, “It is important to understand that neither students nor accommodation providers are to blame for the current shortages.