The cost of off-campus student accommodation at University College Cork (UCC) will rise as high as \u20ac14,000 for the college year, up to double that charged within the university\u2019s own residences.<\/p>\n
An Oireachtas committee will hear on Wednesday how this stands as a \u201cwholly unaffordable\u201d situation for the average student, according to Alex Angland, the president of UCC\u2019s student union.<\/p>\n
Mr Angland will tell the Oireachtas Committee on Higher Education that headlines detailing how the student accommodation crisis is only getting worse are \u201cthe reality for students\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf a student is not fortunate enough to be offered a place through UCC\u2019s accommodation lottery, they\u00a0can find themselves having to pay double the UCC rent somewhere else,\u201d Mr Angland will say.<\/p>\n
At just 1,540 beds, UCC\u2019s student accommodation complement is the lowest per head in the university sector.<\/p>\n
\n Mr Angland will highlight how the ratio of public versus private accommodation for students in the Cork area, already lagging badly behind universities in the rest of the country, is \u201conly getting worse\u201d with several new premium accommodation providers entering the Cork market over the last few years.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAccess to affordable accommodation is currently the single biggest barrier to education in the third-level sector,\u201d Mr Angland will say, adding the few students who can afford to leave home for college often \u201cmust pay extortionate prices or settle for a room that is often damp, mouldy\u00a0or not fit for purpose\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n Separately, president of the Union of Students in Ireland Bryan O\u2019Mahony will tell the committee Irish students more generally are \u201cfaced with a critical shortage in publicly funded, purpose-built\u00a0student accommodation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Students are \u201ccompeting directly\u201d with young families and workers to secure a place to live.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAverage rents in purpose-built student housing now exceed \u20ac800 per month, with luxury developments costing considerably more,\u201d Mr O\u2019Mahony will say, adding students subsisting on a State grant cannot afford to match those rents.<\/p>\n
\n Due to the lack of affordable accommodation, many students will resort to couch-surfing or living in hostels for weeks on end.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cFor many, long commutes are the only option. We hear daily from students travelling two, three, even four hours to and from campus. These journeys are exhausting, and cause burnout,\u201d he is expected to tell the committee.<\/p>\n
\n Mr O\u2019Mahony will add the solutions to the crisis \u201care clear\u201d \u2014 public investment in student accommodation, rent caps, and regulations.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cost of off-campus student accommodation at University College Cork (UCC) will rise as high as \u20ac14,000 for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,79,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-25898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cork-news","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}