Postgrad housing crisis continues to cause concern

Half of the 200 postgraduate students who failed to receive university-managed accommodation are still struggling to find somewhere permanent to live.

Concerns among displaced students have intensified since the University has cut off its financial subsidising of temporary accommodation. Students are now paying the full price to stay in hotels and the Conference Centre.

Disappointment has been expressed by students with the short notice given by Warwick Accommodation informing them of the oversubscription for campus accommodation.

An international Psychology postgraduate who wished to use the initials ‘MG’ stated: “I received my rejection letter from Warwick Accommodation on September 13. I applied, paid, and received a confirmation email before the July 31 deadline.”

Complaints have also been made by students regarding the slow response and the lack of support given by the University.

The Students’ Union (SU) has expressed its concern about the effect the housing crisis is having on students’ welfare and academic life.

MG commented: “I am at the mercy of the bus schedule. This limits my time in the library, availability for study groups, availability to meet with professors in their offices.

“I have also now had to pay £280 for a year’s bus pass when my original budget did not account for that.”

Lucy Gill, postgraduate officer at the SU, assured students that the SU “will be working incredibly hard over the next couple of weeks to ensure that the University are aware of the problems you’re facing”.

An emergency drop-in session was held on October 16 to give advice to those still having difficulties with finding off-campus accommodation.

Many students, however, have decided to take matters into their own hands given the “very limited list of rooms”.

“I withdrew my request for further assistance, formally applied for a refund of my deposit, and found my own accommodation,” explained MG.

“I was so aggravated by the confusion […] it did not make sense to me that if they could not get it right the first time, why would I want to trust them to get it right the second time?

“I found a very reasonably priced room in a house in the Canley area,” she concluded.

Ms Gill said: “We’re concerned that the University hasn’t fully appreciated the seriousness of the situation and want to ensure that this situation does not happen again.”

Students have been advised to reclaim back their £250 reservation fee.

Peter Dunn, a spokesperson for the University, said: “The maximum number of postgraduates students in such a position at any one time over the last few weeks was in fact 150.

“This resulted from Warwick exhibiting even higher levels of popularity than usual this year amongst both prospective undergraduate and prospective postgraduate students.

“Initially these students were put in high-quality accommodation in our own residential management training centres or in local hotels but they were only charged the same rate as that campus postgraduate accommodation and they were also each given £70 on their Eating at Warwick cards.

“The last of those students had moved from those hotels, or our residential management training centres, to accommodation by October 14.

“The date of notification for each of those students as to their initial accommodation arrangements would have been very varied as a number of them were late applicants to the University.”

The SU has underlined that anyone seeking advice relating to university-provided accommodation or contracts is welcome to drop in to their offices based in SUHQ.