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In the U.K. certainly we have the problem certainly that developers are building 'luxury' student accommodation to serve wealthy foreign students - with univers
by kristianc 10y ago
In the U.K. certainly we have the problem certainly that developers are building 'luxury' student accommodation to serve wealthy foreign students - with universities then outsourcing their accommodation to them.
Part of this is economics. It's easy to build and subsidize accommodation knowing that you can make the subsidy back on private hire conference guests if you're an Oxford or Cambridge. Less so if you're Bath or Coventry.
Students who used to have reasonable, subsidized accommodation now have a choice between the relatively unregulated and unsubsidized private rental market and these overpriced palaces with flat screen TVs etc.
- pjc50 10y ago> with flat screen TVs All TVs are flatscreen. The TV license costs more than a TV. I'm sure the new student accomodation is overpriced, but that's market effects not the presence of TVs. The real culprit is the government trying to run universities as profit centres. The policy isn't "joined-up": we're probably going to see further crackdowns on student visas at the same time as European funding is withdrawn. I'm waiting for the first redbrick university to go bankrupt..
- SixSigma 10y agoAt my University they spun off their accommodation, which is perfectly adequate, into a separate company. Then the private sector came in and built slightly better accommodation and charge slightly more. The town is filling up with student accommodation and we're entering the Pork Cycle [1] as rooms go unfilled. The spun-off housing suffering worst of all, and without money to invest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago> flat screen TVs When was the last time you saw a CRT?
- kristianc 10y agoMy room at uni certainly didn't come pre-equipped with a TV of any kind.