Student accomodation: ‘How am I meant to afford to live and go to college? College is becoming unattainable’

“It is not a matter of what I’m passionate about or where my dream course or college is, it is about where is feasible and affordable now,” said Mohammed Naeem (18), from Claremorris, Co Mayo, after receiving his CAO offer on Wednesday.

Having secured the Leaving Cert marks to get his number-one choice, studying medical and health sciences at University College Cork, Naeem’s elation was somewhat subdued by the fact that he could not afford accommodation ahead of the academic year and instead intends to defer his third-level place.

“I’ve explored all my options,” he said, adding that he works part-time in a local supermarket earning €9 per hour. “When you’re earning that, how am I meant to afford to live and go to college? College is becoming unattainable.”

Despite joining the desperate scramble for accommodation months before the Leaving Cert results were released in late August, Naeem was still unable to secure on-campus accommodation provided by a college, which is typically more affordable.

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“I ended up on a wait list, and I wasn’t told how long I’d be on that for or given any details, I was just told I didn’t get in and that was it,” he said. “There certainly isn’t enough supply of student accommodation on campus, and private accommodations are charging enormous amounts, upwards of €9,000 a year, which is simply unaffordable.”

Determining college choices

The Leaving Cert is stressful at the best of times for those undertaking it, but in recent years the strain has, for many, become even more pronounced due to the associated rush to secure somewhere affordable to live once college places are handed out. The possibility of finding affordable accommodation is, in some cases, determining which CAO options students select.

“I wasn’t even that stressed about the Leaving Cert, I was more stressed about trying to find accommodation,” said Naeem. “Even the CAO offers, people’s first thoughts were ‘Will I be able to get accommodation?’ and ‘Will I be homeless or commuting crazy distances?’ For months in advance it was in the background of your mind.”

This added pressure, Naeem said, impacted on his performance in the Leaving Cert exams. “You are trying to study for your exams, but at the same time wondering about what’s going to happen with accommodation,” he said.

“Even if you get your course now, you might not be able to do it. For people like me in Mayo, it’s just impossible to commute to Cork for college, so I’m left with no option, I either pay the huge rents or I defer for the year and try to save.”

Naeem had initially been contemplating attending college in Dublin, but said the cost of accommodation in the capital forced a rethink, and he instead opted for a course in Cork. Figures released by the Residential Tenancies Board last week highlighted that the average rent in Dublin now sits at more than €2,100 a month.

“I’ve seen rooms priced as high as €325 per week in Dublin, and often you are sharing facilities and toilets and even the bedroom itself,” he said. “No student could possibly afford that on their own, so they are forced to rely on their families, and sometimes families aren’t in a situation where they can provide that support due to the cost-of-living crisis.”

Should his deferral be accepted, Naeem hopes to secure a better-paid job that would allow him to save money to cover accommodation costs for the 2024-2025 academic year. But he believes it should not get to a point where students are more concerned over finances than their studies.

“You see so many people now starting part-time jobs from the age of 15 or 16 just so that they can try and save up for accommodation in advance. It’s becoming unrealistic for an ordinary student to go to college,” he added.

Couch-surfing for months

Saba Aghdam Tabar, who is completing a PhD in chemical and bioprocessing engineering at University College Dublin (UCD), said her experience trying to find accommodation was “really, really difficult.” She was unable to find a solution for the coming academic year over the summer.

During her search, Tabar spent nearly three months couch-surfing. “I was lucky that I could stay in friends’ houses before finding accommodation, but it took two or three months of this before I [did].”

Her break came when a work colleague moved out of her apartment and was able to transfer the lease to Tabar. The next challenge will be trying to pay for housing in Dublin on a PhD stipend.

A recent Government report found that most PhD students earn about €18,000-€20,000 per year. Tabar is paying more than €900 per month for rent (excluding bills) and has a 30-minute commute to UCD’s campus.

“For the money that I am being paid, the rent that I am paying is too high,” she said.

Finding a house on TikTok

After finding accommodation through a TikTok video for his first year of college, Ralph McKeown (19), from Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, is back on the house hunt ahead of his second year of a media studies degree at Maynooth University.

As a worst-case scenario, he is preparing to face a daily 110-minute commute, each way, and finds himself relying on the possibility of “someone dropping out” so that a room might come open for him to stay in.

Last year, McKeown said, he tried to apply for on-campus accommodation but the chances were slim given there were 300 to 350 available places and more than 13,000 students enrolled in the university.

“Obviously I didn’t make it through the waiting lists, so I started posting and sharing my situation on Facebook, Instagram, until making a TikTok account and talking about it in a short video,” he said. “At that stage I was four days away from the college starting date, and a girl I know from Wexford saw it. She put me in contact with a person she knew and that’s how I got a room a 15-minute walk away from college.”

McKeown is hoping for a repeat and that a “last-minute” solution will eventually crop up this year. He and friends from college have been looking for somewhere to live since April without finding an answer. He said he is now open to going beyond his initial budget as “at this stage you’ll just have to take what’s given to you”.

[ Student accommodation in Northern Ireland: ‘It’s a three bedroomed house, which is about £375 a month. It’s a lot cheaper’ ]

Nearly forced to cancel her exchange

Elisabeth Koopal (20), from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said she was almost forced to cancel her plans to come to study at Maynooth University as an exchange student.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity, but the difficulty of finding a place to stay made the lead-up incredibly stressful,” she said. “I wasn’t picky at all.”

Koopal recalls sending hundreds of emails through various accommodation websites and encountering several accommodation scams on Facebook.

“Thinking I would have to cancel was my lowest point,” she said. “I had put so much effort in planning this exchange, by taking Irish classes and working to save up money to live abroad.”

Koopal eventually found accommodation in a family-occupied house in Celbridge, Co Kildare, about half an hour away from the university.