Manchester Universities struggling to provide accommodation for all students

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the University of Manchester (UoM) have been forced to take extraordinary measures amid excess demand for accommodation.

Roughly 250 students at MMU have been offered accommodation in Liverpool and Huddersfield. Both are over 25 miles from Manchester.

UoM, according to the University’s student paper The Mancunion and the Manchester Evening News, has offered around 350 students as much as £2500 to live in university-lined-up accommodation in Preston and Liverpool.

MMU said that 2% of their incoming cohort will be affected after more students took up places than the institution was expecting.

MMU has assured students it will pay for their travel costs to campus, adding, “We know that this will be disappointing for [students], and we are doing everything we can to find them rooms in Manchester as soon as we can.

“Manchester is an incredibly popular student city and there is significant demand for accommodation.

“We have offered places to our target student numbers this year and planned our accommodation based on long-term experience of how many of those offers are likely to be accepted, while also building in a considerable cushion.”

UoM has said, “We have admitted more students over the last three years, linked in particular to the exceptional circumstances around A Level results during the pandemic and the increase in students achieving the highest marks. This has created a knock-on impact into our own student accommodation, which is oversubscribed this year.”