Residential model here to stay ‘but needs rethink’

Solving student accommodation problems could help address some of the UK higher education sector’s biggest challenges, a new report argues.

Universities must “rediscover and rearticulate” the sense of community that ought to underpin student housing, according to author William Whyte, professor of social and architectural history at the University of Oxford.

Doing so could be a step towards tackling other issues including settling questions about the legitimacy of the university in a changing world and student loneliness, the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) study says.

Moving Away? The Past and Future of Student Accommodation reports that the “overwhelming majority” of students still wish to leave their hometown to study.

Moreover, those who do so “benefit from this migration”, with Whyte citing research that finds nearly 90 per cent of those who do move away expressing themselves “satisfied” with the experience.

The most recent Higher Education Statistics Agency figures, meanwhile, show that just 21 per cent of all full-time students reside in their family home during term time.

But a raft of problems, including the rising cost of living and the inadequacy of accommodation on offer, means the “contract between providers and students is stretched almost to breaking point”.

“This is not just a problem for students,” Whyte writes, “it is a real issue for higher education providers. If they get this wrong, their reputations will suffer, their recruitment will fall and the current problems they face will only be exacerbated – perhaps existentially.”

Yet rather than advocate for abandoning the residential experience – which the report suggests is a quintessential and enviable characteristic of the British offer – Whyte finds that the model, if implemented well, could even help address some of the sector’s biggest problems.

Accommodation, if rethought and improved, could help tackle the student mental health crisis and reaffirm universities’ invaluable status as “living, breathing” communities in an age of artificial intelligence, he says.

In a series of recommendations, Whyte calls for higher education providers to agree on fixed definitions of terms such as “commuter student”.

“At present, wide divergences in understanding mean that this is essentially a meaningless category,” he claims.

Universally understood terminology would allow the sector to capture better data on student accommodation patterns and paint a picture of how university attendees are “actually living, and what effect this has on them”.

The report makes clear that students require a better financial settlement, including maintenance grants, and urges collaboration between the government, universities and accommodation developers.

“Research on London reveals an apparent paradox: a growing number of empty rooms despite an ongoing demand for housing,” the report states. “The market is working perversely to produce a glut of over-priced accommodation.

“This is a situation made worse by the increasing number of universities unwilling to enter into agreements with housing providers. Where London goes, others will follow. A new approach is required.”

The report, commissioned by the UPP Foundation, also questions the impact of the Renters’ Rights Act.

Despite the fact it has been billed as legislation with potential to assist students, Whyte warns that its impact is yet to be fully understood.

“Similar reform in Scotland did undoubtedly reduce the supply of student accommodation, and the most dramatic predictions suggest that the act may drive thousands of landlords from the market,” the report notes.

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com