The high cost of accommodation and student living has “soured” the college experience for Kosi Okeke (22) and caused him to drop out of his biomedical science course after a year.
Originally from Co Westmeath, the now-former University of Galway student had been renting a room in a shared house in Galway city with four others for €600 a month.
He said he worked 35 to 40 hours a week alongside his lectures, in a variety of jobs, including in a nursing home, as a hospital night receptionist and as a retail assistant.
“You finish college lectures, you go to work, and by the time you finish work you’ve been on your feet for probably a total of 10 hours-plus,” he said. After this, “you don’t want to look at a book, you just want to lie down”.
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Thousands of students across Ireland return to university campuses this month, and the scramble to find a place to live continues.
In recent weeks, some students in Dublin and Galway have been handing leaflets to commuters in an effort to source rooms for new and returning students.
Okeke is no longer among those desperately searching for a place to stay. Remaining in college is “not really practical at the minute”, he said, adding that he is returning home to Westmeath to work and consider his options for next year.
[ Desperately seeking accommodation: Galway students appeal for public’s helpOpens in new window ]
He said he often missed classes to make his shifts, and his grades suffered too.
While he had a generally positive experience living in shared accommodation, he said there was mould in the house, and he had to paint his bathroom himself.
He feels the social aspect of college was “harder than it should have been” as a result of having to work full-time hours during college. “If you don’t have the social aspect, you’re almost guaranteed to fail,” he said.
Laragh Scharf (22), a final-year political science and social policy student at Trinity College Dublin, recalled receiving an email from Trinity’s accommodation services during the exam period informing her she had not received campus accommodation for her final year of college.
“I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I broke down crying,” she said. “I went straight to the residences office, where the two women kindly handed me tissues, though I left feeling that I hadn’t been given the space to properly explain how hard this process had been for me.”
Throughout college, Scharf struggled to find accommodation, saying she paid “very high rents for places with no heating and poor water”.
Scharf said she works full-time every summer to save for the academic year ahead. As an Irish-American student, she pays international tuition fees of about €22,000 a year. This is “despite my Irish citizenship and two years living in Cork”, she said.
After multiple appeals to the college by herself and her mother, she was eventually offered campus accommodation in the second round of offers. While relieved, she said she “cannot help thinking of students who don’t have anyone to support them in this way. Not everyone has a family member who can help, or the energy and time to keep pushing back.”
“There needs to be more real support for students trying to find housing”, she said. “So many of us are already under pressure from exams, jobs and worries about the future. We should not also be left wondering if we will even have a safe and affordable place to live.”
Séathrún Defuite (21) from Kildare has just finished studying philosophy and classics at the University of Galway. In the past three years, he has lived in eight different properties.
DeFuite hopes to stay in Galway to work, as his girlfriend and friends live there too.
During his most recent search for accommodation, he viewed a house that “had two broken windows”, costing €600 a month per room. He also described seeing “holes in the wall” that revealed “the beams supporting the house”.
He is now paying €700 per month for a double-bed en suite room, which he feels is “pretty good considering the current market”.
He recounted the stress of looking for accommodation while “trying to do exams, submit essays and study” every year during college.
“Often times you’d have viewings for houses in the same weeks you’d have exams, and you’re trying to sort yourself with somewhere to live. Trying to get through college is already stressful enough.”
