Juan Rayón, president of Erasmus Student Network, told that accommodation has long been a problem, pointing to research suggesting that 45% of students in Erasmus+ study mobility find it difficult to secure accommodation. A similar proportion found accommodation costs higher than expected. The report talks about Erasmus Students Accommodation Problems.
“Housing has been a problem for quite a number of years, especially in certain mobility destinations, like capitals, big cities, etc. It’s one of the main challenges,” he said. And as forms of mobility become more flexible, the difficulties increase, he continued.
“In the last few years, we are seeing an increase in, for instance, trainingships. Now there’s more talk on the importance of short-term mobility, especially for inclusion purposes. So basically, this adds up to the existing challenges.”
To support students on non-traditional mobility formats and short-term programs, Rayón proposed “concrete” support initiatives.
“We live in this inflationary era and it’s really important to make sure that we adapt mobility grants to this change in prices.
“We have been [talking about] this dimension of inclusive mobility and how important increasing mobility is, but if we are not fast at adapting grants, what’s going to happen is that students are not going to be able to properly afford [mobility].
“At the moment, everybody who goes to the same country gets the same grant, but that doesn’t really work, especially for accommodation.
“If you go on Erasmus to Madrid, it’s completely different compared to if you go to Alicante or to a medium-sized Spanish city. So we need to adapt grants, depending on the cities. It can also be done through some kind of accommodation top-up,” he suggested.
The report for Erasmus students gave the information below:
• Around half of Erasmus+ students claim that it is difficult to find accommodation. Almost half (45%) of students in Erasmus+ study mobility and 56% of those doing traineeships say that the housing market of their host HEI was difficult.
• Across all chosen student target groups, almost half stated that their accommodation costs were higher than expected. 39% of exchange students and 50% of those doing traineeships state that the cost of accommodation in their host country was higher than they had expected. Most of the students for whom extra cost made it difficult to finance their exchange period turned to family support or used their personal savings, which raises the question about social selectivity of exchange periods abroad.
• HEIs are the main source of reliable information. For Erasmus+ students, the information provided by their HEI regarding accommodation options is the main source of information and also most often leads to them actually finding accommodation. On average around 66% of Erasmus+ students say that the information provided by their host HEI was useful. On the other hand, social media channels, as well as general housing websites, are commonly used to look for information on housing but rarely lead to students actually finding accommodation.
• Helping hand from the HEI. Roughly two-thirds of Erasmus+ students and trainees arrange their accommodation themselves and for around one-third of those in study mobility, the host HEI arranged it for them.
• Living in a student dormitory. The percentage of exchange students living in dormitories depends heavily on the way of life in the specific country and can range from more than 75% to less than 10%.
• Satisfaction with accommodation. Around two-thirds of the Erasmus+ student body claim that their accommodation was good value for money and around three-quarters reported overall satisfaction with their accommodation.
• Lack of equal treatment. An average of 17% of respondents in Erasmus+ study mobility report perceived discrimination when looking for accommodation and 12% of them experienced attempted fraud when looking for accommodation in their host country. Typical aspects mentioned as perceived discrimination are: less access to information, higher rents, as well as xenophobia, and legal restrictions.
• Situation is more difficult for trainees. Bearing in mind that no substantial differences can be observed among different student target groups, Erasmus+ program trainees assess their success in finding decent and affordable housing slightly below that of all the other groups.
Some of the challenges for Erasmus Accommodation and for Erasmus Plus accommodation include:
• Main challenges. HEIs identify the following issues as the most important barriers to finding decent and affordable accommodation: contractual limitations for exchange students (shorter term contracts lead to higher prices), linguistic constraints, as well as lack of intercultural competencies (or miscommunication) as an obstacle to finding decent accommodation.
• Providing information. More than two-thirds of International Relation Offices do not have a dedicated person in the office to support students with their search for accommodation. HEIs state that overall there is a high demand among students for them to provide the necessary information on housing. On the whole, HEIs feel confident that they are also living up to expectations in delivering this information; however, this does not match with students’ perceptions.
• Recommendations. Most HEIs call for more cooperation of all the actors involved (private entities, individual landlords, student organizations) and state that it is in the interest of municipalities to also contribute to the work of ensuring suitable accommodation for mobile students.
• More funding. HEIs are calling for more funding to deal with the challenges they are facing and are suggesting that the initiative could come from the EU. Similarly, the legal issues would call for a more systematic pan-European solution.
• Outsourcing v. insourcing. HEIs need to cope with challenges carefully by balancing insourcing and outsourcing of the accommodation provided for students. The right balance depends on the maturity of private student accommodation markets, the level of housing shortages, legal restraints mobile students might face in the local real estate market, as well as the HEI’s internationalization strategy.
You can read the full report on Accommodation for Erasmus Students including housing challenges for students and perspectives on Erasmus accommodation at the link below: (Click the title below)