Student life now 'drudge' claims Laois Offaly representative

The third-level student accommodation crisis has transformed the college experience into a ‘daily commuter drudge characterised by massive expense and precarious legal rights’ for thousands of young people throughout the state, according to Laois Offaly TD Carol Nolan.

The Independent TD said indicators from the most recent Eurostudent report, published by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which surveyed more than 21,000 students about their social and living conditions, should have raised alarm bells within the Government about the depth and scale of the accommodation affordability and access problems that have been ongoing since 2019.

The report found that accommodation is the largest single expenditure which accounts for around 35 percent of all expenditure, and the average spend on accommodation was €469 (up from €415 in the last Eurostudent report).

It also found that the overall average monthly income for all students was €1,122. The overall average monthly expenditure for all students was €1,340. 

“I have been making the point for some time now that there is a real danger around third-level education becoming deeply exclusionary and the preserve of high-income families,” the Laois Offaly TD said as students return to or begin college.

“Unfortunately, despite all the talk we hear of increased grants and student supports almost nothing has been done to fundamentally address the accommodation crisis, which in turn is creating enormous expense and stress for students and families. We also know that even in situations where students can acquire digs, the legal rights are far from robust and many students simply have to accept what they are given regardless of the cost.”

The Independent TD who also sits as a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, went on to say in a statement that the accommodation crisis is wiping out some positive measures that she has campaigned on such as the need to increase the student earnings threshold and the impact this has on grant applications:

“I have previously welcomed the decision to increase the holiday earnings, that is, the amount a student can earn outside term time, from €6,552 to €7,925, but even the benefit of this measure is being annihilated due to the consistent rise in rent and living expenses.

“If we are serious about retaining our students and not forcing them to the UK or elsewhere then Government has to demonstrate a seriousness about this crisis that has been spectacularly absent to date,” concluded Deputy Nolan.

The HEA says it leads the strategic development of the Irish higher education and research system with the objective of creating a coherent system of diverse institutions with distinct missions, which is responsive to the social, cultural and economic development of Ireland and its people and supports the achievement of national objectives.

The main aim of the EUROSTUDENT project is to collate comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education.