Student accommodation “cannot be cross-subsidised by revenues from student fees or research grants”, Provost Patrick Prendergast has said, and “has to pay for itself” in order to keep up with demand.
In an op-ed for the Irish Times published today, Prendergast hit back at the idea of college-subsidised accommodation for students, asking: “Why should students living in flats or at home subsidise those living in university accommodation?”
The provost highlighted the imbalance of demand and supply of on-campus student accommodation, saying that “in Trinity we have almost three applicants for each space”.
“When the first round of CAO offers is issued to first years in August, the mad scramble for off-campus apartments or digs begins in earnest”, he said, “prompting the predictable media reports about a student housing ‘crisis’”.
Defending the use of campus accommodation as a source of income, Prendergast said: “The universities are also able to rent out rooms when term ends to visiting academics, students, tourists and others. This provides much-needed revenue that subsidises academic activities.”
“It’s one way we can offset the massive drop in public funding of higher education. The income earned is ploughed back into essential academic activity.”
“In an ideal world”, he wrote, “university students should have the option of reasonably priced accommodation on campus. In an ideal world, there would be government funding for student housing, but there isn’t. To build the extra provision of recent years on Irish campuses universities had to take out loans from the European Investment Bank or make business arrangements with private investors. Loans, of course, have to be paid back”.
“While the recent rent increases announced by some institutions have sparked off protests from students, the reality is that on-campus accommodation has to pay for itself. It cannot be cross-subsidised by revenues from student fees or research grants. Why should students living in flats or at home subsidise those living in university accommodation?”
Prendergast’s op-ed comes in the wake of a stream of protests in response to rent increases on a number of Ireland’s university campuses. Last week, for the second week in a row, Trinity students blocked off the entrance to the College in protest at mooted rent increases, calling for a rent freeze amid a wave of demonstrations across the country at the cost of student accommodation.
Students in University College Cork have spent the last week occupying the “Quad” area of their campus, in response to the college’s decision to increase on-campus rent by three per cent. Students in University College Dublin, Dublin City University and NUI Galway have staged similar protests in recent weeks.
The University of Limerick has also come under fire for a new campus accommodation scheme that will see a second bed added to apartments originally designed for one person.
