Student Rent Strikes Due to lack of En-suite Facilities

GwylimT

duchy wrote: »

And you are claiming the university once your daughter informed them were fine with this ?

Sounds like your daughter was having you on.

Do you really think universities take the names of visitors, nevermind vet them? My Neice must be having the national press on as well, google Carl Leech.

missbiggles1

duchy wrote: »

When you were a student you didn't need to "give a toss" as you got a grant so weren't reliant on them to pay your rent. Now parents have to pay they tend to feel they have more of a say and their offspring tend to have to be less dismissive of their parents opinions. He who pays the piper (or the rent) tends to call the tune.

We may have had grants in my day but they were still assessed on parental income so students from comfortably off homes still relied on their parents to pay their contributions towards maintenance. I know many young people don't know this but I'm surprised somebody older doesn't remember it.

GwylimT

duchy wrote: »

My local uni Has really nice and modern halls but even a 2 bedroom house walking distance of halls let alone anything bigger works out cheaper per head so no one stays beyond their first year even though they can.

It can be much cheaper, my son really wanted to live in during first year to meet other first years, he left and moved into private housing aimed at students. He had a double room, en-suite, a nice kitchen between four with a living room area and television, it was £7 per week cheaper than his university halls. Some halls now are mor costly than the largest student finance yearly loan!

missbiggles1

GwylimT wrote: »

It can be much cheaper, my son really wanted to live in during first year to meet other first years, he left and moved into private housing aimed at students. He had a double room, en-suite, a nice kitchen between four with a living room area and television, it was £7 per week cheaper than his university halls. Some halls now are mor costly than the largest student finance yearly loan!

Many universities now offer both super duper luxury accommodation with en suites and the more traditional halls that many of us remember, with prices to match. Despite all the cries of poverty from students (and parents) it's always the luxury accommodation that sells out first - which I think is very telling.

GwylimT

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Many universities now offer both super duper luxury accommodation with en suites and the more traditional halls that many of us remember, with prices to match. Despite all the cries of poverty from students (and parents) it's always the luxury accommodation that sells out first - which I think is very telling.

He went to Birmingham university and he had one of the cheapest (didn't get his first choice of the Beeches which was the cheapest) and his rent was still more than his loan and grant. Out of his friends he was one of the few who was expected to pay himself.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

We may have had grants in my day but they were still assessed on parental income so students from comfortably off homes still relied on their parents to pay their contributions towards maintenance. I know many young people don't know this but I'm surprised somebody older doesn't remember it.

I was never a fulltime student but from friends who went to uni in late 60s early 70s I seem to remember they had access to other benefits, weren't they able to claim job seekers (well it wasn't called that then) and housing benefit for the academic holidays. I was a busy mum at the time so I might have got it wrong.

mumps

When we were looking at universities for my daughter she went on a tour at one of the universities she was interested in. She said the students taking them round said don't go in the expensive halls the cheap ones are the sociable ones where you will have a great time. Don't have an en suite as you have to clean it, if you have a shared bathroom it gets cleaned every week. My daughter did go in a cheap hall although at another university and she said she agreed with the advice she was given although the bathrooms were sometimes a state.

setmefree2

Sapphire wrote: »

Good Lord! Your offspring are very lucky…

Everyone wants 'good-quality' accommodation. However, I've never known students to have en suite facilities – all the many students I've known have tended to share digs and perhaps have their own bedrooms, but perhaps things are different now! NB I don't have en suite facilities, and I'm a home owner…

It's normal these days for a large proportion of university halls to be offered with en suite facilities. We offered both our sons this option and they turned it down, they preferred to be in flats with shared bathrooms - the mid priced stuff - as a previous poster said these are regarded as the most sociable flats. In 2nd year eldest DS was in a house with a 3D TV....

It's definitely good money for the landlords - youngest DS is in a house of 6 at £400 ish per month each = £30k pa in Newcastle. I don't know Newcastle well but most of the Newcastle Uni students live in an area called Jesmond which I've been told is one of the posher areas of the city, which probably speaks volumes about today's university experience. Seriously, who wants their kids living in a crappy neighborhood? Anyway, the landlords provide high quality student accommodation because they know there is a market for it. This includes the university providing good quality accommodation for freshers and private landlords for the rest.

Newcastle has a population of 250,000. In term time there are 50,000 students in the city. 20,000 Newcastle Uni students and 30,000 Northumbria Uni. They bring an enormous amount to the Newcastle economy.

Both of my kids are loving Uni life. I really don't think living in !!!!!! accommodation like we did in the past has much to recommend it tbh. You go to Uni to study and it's much easier to do this if you are warm and in a nice environment and can cook and do your washing easily. Don't worry though students can still be really messy and dirty, most halls these days come with a cleaner.

Generali

GwylimT wrote: »

Its awful that people make light of rape, I hope you wouldn't be so flippant if it was your own ten year old daughter.

I don't think people are making light of rape. I think they're making light of you making stuff up.

missbiggles1

mumps wrote: »

I was never a fulltime student but from friends who went to uni in late 60s early 70s I seem to remember they had access to other benefits, weren't they able to claim job seekers (well it wasn't called that then) and housing benefit for the academic holidays. I was a busy mum at the time so I might have got it wrong.

You used to be able to claim unemployment benefit , IIRC, during my first year (75/76) but then it stopped. You may have been able to claim Supplementary Benefit after that but I'm pretty sure you couldn't claim money for housing.

Given that everybody I knew either worked or went home to live with parents for the holidays, it wasn't that relevant.:)