According to a recent article in The Guardian student rent continues to soar and their living costs are currently outstripping their loans.
In the last 3 years rents have risen by 25%. causing a serious housing issue for students.
This is reaching crisis point now as students rush to sort their accommodation for the next academic year. Shelly Asquith vice president of welfare at the National Union of Students said “Students are facing a housing crisis with an ever-narrowing gap between their incomes and what they are expected to pay in rent. There needs to be enforced rent controls to put an end to this.”
Accommodation Crisis
Recent NUS figures show that for the academic year 2014 to 2015 there was a shortfall £8,000 a year between student living costs and their income from loans and the maintenance grant. Unipol housing charity said between 2010 and 2013 rents rose by 25%. According to their latest information due to be published in Novemeber they expect a further rise of 7%.
Quoted in the Observer from Shelter’s Private Tenant Survey 50% of students are struggling with rent and 40% of student renters had borrowed money from any one of a range of sources to meet their monthly rental payments, in the last year.
Now universities have had the cap removed on student numbers the number of undergraduates looking for accommodation has reached record levels this year
