By Sabrina Sweeney
CONGRATULATIONS to all those Donegal students who received their Leaving Cert results last week. Commiserations to the many who are now wondering how they’re going to find and fund somewhere to live so that they can actually attend their desired course.
The fact that Ireland has a housing shortage isn’t news to anyone but the idea that some young people, who have worked hard to achieve enough points to progress to their third level course of choice, may have to forego that option because accommodation isn’t available or affordable should worry us all.
Going to university offers a young person the opportunity for great experiences and learning – of the academic kind as well as about themselves. It is considered a formative period in a person’s life, a coming-of-age experience that, like all life stages, has a time limit.
Lasting three or four years, it’s often the first step towards independence, a stepping-stone between being a teenager and a ‘real’ adult, which comes complete with getting used to budgeting, juggling bills, shopping for food and changing your bed sheets more often than once every term.
Parents of older children who’ve been to university are often able to recall noticing the difference after just a few months at college. Everything that’s involved with moving away from home, meeting new people and building friendships helps to build character and develop personality and ambition.
Attaining a degree is not for everyone, however, and going to university is certainly not the only route to a successful and well-paid career. It doesn’t protect against the gender pay gap or the stagnation in both pay and opportunities that mostly mothers experience when they choose to take time away from their careers to look after children.
However, evidence suggests that attaining a degree acts as an insurance policy against unemployment, and this can be particularly pertinent for those who do want to return to work after a gap in employment for whatever reason.
Degrees open up more opportunities in the labour market and generally attract higher salaries over time, regardless of socio-economic background.
But pursuing a university education is a greater commitment than it was, say, 15 or 20 years ago because of the costs involved, for fees and to pay for accommodation, depending what and where you choose to study. As it has become less affordable, it has to be a much more considered and deliberate choice to go to uni. That’s not a bad thing; it’s right that the people sitting in a lecture hall really want to be there for the whole college experience, not just because it’s considered a rite of passage.
But worrying about homelessness or shoddy housing options shouldn’t be a factor in the decision-making. The latest daft.ie report shows just how much pressure cities are under, particularly those with universities, when it comes to available housing and rents. Limerick city saw the greatest rise, up 21 per cent year-on-year, while Cork and Galway both saw rent inflation of over 10 per cent.
In Donegal, the cost of renting a 3-bedroom house or an apartment has gone up 2 per cent. While that might be good news for private landlords, it’s forcing prospective university students to choose a course based on housing availability, rather than on the best and most suitable course choice for them.
Wider implications are that many students are struggling to focus properly on their studies and missing out on the broader experiences that go hand-in-hand with college life, such as involvement in groups and activities, because of ongoing worries around housing.
There are currently just under 200,000 students enrolled in full-time study in Ireland and the Department of Education predicts numbers to rise to more than 239,000 by 2031. The government has committed to fund 677 new beds across several sites, including Dublin, but when you consider the Department of Education’s estimates, it’s a drop in the ocean.
There’s divergence of opinion on whether full responsibility for providing student accommodation should rest with the state or the universities themselves, but it’s very clear that while students continue relying on the private market, as is the current state of affairs, the more dire this situation is going to get.
With Budget 2025 approaching, it will be interesting to see how much of a priority the student cohort of the electorate actually is.
Sabrina Sweeney’s Fresh Take column features every Thursday in the Donegal News.
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