On-Campus Student Digs Are Broken – And We All Know It
As soon as I entered campus, the smell of moist carpet and true desire permeated the bathroom. Our shared kitchen had one stove between at least 40 of us, and the so-called “common room” was a fire hazard, with an older TV nailed to the wall. I told myself I could make do. (Side note: I could not.) But after years working in student housing and higher education, I can tell you – conditions haven’t improved for current students.
So, let’s take a break and think: in the face of an actual rental market, would campus housing survive? Do you want to know?
What’s Really Happening Out There
On most campuses, they’re still stuck with facilities that haven’t been modernized since flannel shirts were in fashion. Shared bathrooms are like something out of history, and communal kitchens have microwaves that are as ancient as their owners. The worst part? The prices are still rising.
Visit a Go8 campus and speak to ‘real’ students (not those selected for prime placement in a glossy brochure, but the ones bundled eight-to-a-room in those dimly lit, non air-conditioned, February heat, sharing a bathroom with six others). When you ask them if they think they’re getting value for their investment, I’ve found the answer is pretty much always the same.
One in six students – also based on sector surveys – say that the accommodation on campus is too expensive, not well looked after, or a combination of the two. This isn’t a vocal minority of a few unhappy exceptions; it is the student chant of the majority.
Maintenance requests go nowhere. Commons are overcrowded. Dorms are smell like they’ve been sprayed with a layer of mildew. And the satisfaction ratings get worse every year. It’s a never-ending cycle, and universities have largely decided to pretend like it’s not happening.
Why Universities Are Wrong on this
Let’s be frank: On-campus accommodation has become a cash generator, not a service underpinned by care.
All those bells, those whistles, that whole residence hall model-shared bathrooms, curfews, those RA hierarchy types telling us to tone it down by nine o’clock at night-it wasn’t built with us in mind in the first place. It was designed to be easy for institutions and cheap for them, and they just… kept on doing it.
There comes a time when the talk of student wellbeing is replaced by the brutal fact of occupancy. I’ve attended enough meetings to identify the pattern. A participant mentions student satisfaction; another one worries about the bottom line. And which one prevails?
And the human toll– declining mental health, students dropping out or transferring, young people shutting down because their housing is overwhelming– is hidden behind the label ‘sector-wide challenge’ rather than problem we created.
And I’m not saying that all university administrators are unconcerned. But what we are dealing with is a systemic issue, and good intentions do not fix broken systems. The gov advice on student wellbeing clearly states that universities have a duty of care beyond the lecture theatre. Housing is included. End of.
What Students Are Actually Asking For
What really ticks me off is how easy it is. Students have been bitching for decades about what they need. It’s not brain surgery.
They need to feel connected. They want to come together in the kitchen with their flatmates without everything being a headache. They desire a quiet corner to study and a buzzing lounge to unwind – not the same bland hallway serving two purposes. They crave more approachable housing staff, not standoffish shoulder-tappers.
Inclusiveness is a theme that reappears frequently. With so many international students living on campus, many of the living environments described seem to feed the same limited, antiquated vision of “student life.” This is a problem we need to address.
Give credit when credit is due and some institutions are getting it right. Residential colleges such as Cromwell have created spaces that actually work for students– authentic community, pastoral care that actually feels pastoral and spaces that are designed around a student reality. These are proof that change can be made, it just takes a university truly trying-and for some reason that can seem like the hardest step of all.
So What Does Better Really Mean?
First, and foremost: quit thinking about accommodation as an afterthought, an add-on to the actual enrollment process. It’s not just a little bit of this or a little bit of that. How a student lives changes how they are enrolled, how they perform, and how they think about their time at the university.
There are also other ways. Canada and the UK are launching mixed-use residential neighborhoods – condensed dwelling units grouped around resilient shared community facilities. Mental health care embedded in the fabric of where people live, rather than off in the distance at a counseling service. Permissive configurations that are adaptable through time.
None of this is some science-fiction mentality. It is already happening. It works. We just haven’t had the gumption to do it.
Design is important as well: how a space sounds, smells, feels through natural daylight and ventilation, avoiding spaces that don’t feel like a holding pen. It’s what we should all hope for in a learning environment. And children and young people need to be a real part of the design process -they need to be genuinely involved in shaping the space.
The support for student wellbeing by providers is already stipulated in the Higher Education Standards Framework. The measures of accountability are in place. What has been lacking until this point is the will to implement these standards.
Cut the Pretending
Living in Australia on campus needs a critical check of the mirror. We have succumbed to a culture of crumbling facilities, commercialisation, and institutional apathy which leaves a significant proportion of our students – the majority of whom are experiencing the realities of living independently for the first time – to live on campus. Not OK.
The evidence is there. Students have been signing petitions, complaining for years. We have successful international examples to learn from. We have a regulatory framework with power – if only someone would apply it.
What we lack is the will to make a real change.
If your university’s residential plan looks much like it did 10 years ago, you should question why. Because those same students sleeping in those very same beds tonight should be getting so much more than a plan built for a time that’s long gone. If we let this slide, we’ll be hearing the same arguments in another decade-just with different students.