Fenton Christmas explains what it’s like being a student from a low income background and how the university fails to address the impacts inequality can have on less affluent students’ studies.
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The Student Loan Debate
When applying to University, I was astonished to discover that as a 20-year-old woman I would still have to be financially dependent on my parents for three more years due to the means tested maintenance loans. Legally I could drive, drink alcohol, and get married, yet for the next three years I would be treated […]
Tales from the houses of horror
Before I moved into my first student house, I was expecting the experience to mirror a less blow-dried episode of Friends. But what I got was a slice of Addams Family with a side of Bugs Life. My first house crawled with dirt- literally: bugs on the floor, bugs on mattresses, the stench of rot […]
Students refuse to name award winner in protest over rising rent prices
A category from Property Week’s Student Accommodation Awards has been withdrawn, after a handpicked panel of student judges refused to choose a winner in protest over increasing rent prices. The ten students had been invited to judge a shortlist of providers in the “student experience” category of the inaugural Student Accommodation Awards. However, the judges […]
Could new “co-op” solve Exeter’s student housing troubles?
As fears grow about the lack of affordable housing in Exeter, one group of students has put forward a “vibrant and viable alternative” to expensive rented accommodation: a student housing cooperative. Set up by Sean Porter, Will Vasey and Sherv Cheung, Exeter Student Housing Cooperative (ESHCO) aims to “bring cheaper housing to Exeter” through a community-owned scheme. “It’s a non-profit entity, which […]
Being strapped for cash at university
Whack ‘student make money quick’ or the like into Google, and the countless articles that spring up will make it clear that many students are indeed searching out ways to make extra cash whilst studying. However, these are more than just Del boy-esque ‘get rich quick schemes’: they’re a very real indication of the financial pressures […]
2015: A year in review (January – June)
Ah, the dawn of a new year. Always slightly troubling, isn’t it? Whilst we’re all suffering from Christmas hat syndrome (“is there still one on my head? I genuinely can’t tell anymore”), we’re simultaneously shock-stricken that summer wasn’t yesterday… and when did Halloween happen? Did I even have a birthday? Seriously, where did all my […]
Exeter needs more student accommodation, housing report suggests
According to a recent housing report from Citizens Advice, Exeter requires more student accommodation spread out across the city in order to tackle the limited supply of student housing. The report, named ‘Dispatches’, emphasises the growing student population as one of the causes of this housing issue and highlights “the need to offer student […]