Universities must do more to improve campus experience

The trope of the poor university student – living in an inner-city share house stumbling distance from campus, an arts degree an unclear distance from completion, eating baked beans for dinner – conjures memories of horror and nostalgia for many.

But, in one of the world’s most expensive cities, and after a pandemic changed how we work and learn, the campus lifestyle is increasingly a thing of the past.

A Herald analysis in January found many student room rents had increased by more than 35 per cent since 2019, the median rent increase for a one-bedroom apartment in Greater Sydney over the same time period.

Spikes were highest in the rapidly increasing number of buildings owned by private providers. At Scape’s Redfern building, a room in a shared student apartment now costs $739 a week.

These private providers are also outpacing the growth of university-owned accommodation, a trend not assisted by the sale of several University of Technology Sydney student housing buildings to Scape in 2021.

Only a certain type of undergraduate can afford to pay more than $700 a week in rent: one from a privileged background, whose family typically foots the bill.

And with Sydney’s inner-city university suburbs aggressively gentrified over the past two decades, there is little joy for students hoping for a cheap room there. Darlington, Chippendale, Ultimo, Glebe and Kensington were once havens. Now, students look further afield to Ashfield or Tempe, if they move out of home at all.

This has implications for the experience universities can provide: these students are probably more keen to learn remotely to avoid a long commute and navigate work commitments. They are also less able to attend on-campus events, particularly at night, or become involved with clubs and societies. As undergraduate degree fees rise, campus experience is diminishing.

Sydney’s housing crisis also risks pricing students from other areas – regional, interstate and abroad – out of our universities. It is all very well to give bright students who may not otherwise be able to consider university an academic scholarship, but the reign of private providers in the student accommodation sector is not providing the lower-cost alternative needed to the city’s competitive rental market.

In today’s Sun-Herald, University of NSW vice chancellor Attila Brungs appears acutely aware of these issues.

Stepping through his university’s new 10-year strategy with education reporter Christopher Harris, Brungs’ position that students require value and flexibility in the modern undergraduate degree is admirable. However, his pledge to double UNSW’s student housing offering, charging students half the price of private providers, is critical.

Previous attempts by UNSW to increase student housing – admittedly in a private partnership – have faced significant backlash from Randwick Council and the nearby National Institute of Dramatic Art. Where to put housing is Sydney’s perennial debate and the greatest question for this city’s next generation of thinkers.

Ensuring they have a place to eat baked beans – if they can afford them – is a good start.

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