Warning re Uni Accommodation: Exeter

[WIWIKAA]

I know many parents are aware of accommodation shortages and the often outrageous costs involved but I wonder if they aware how bad it has become.

My DC firmed Exeter and achieved grades to secure the place. The accommodation offered under the ‘guarantee’ was an off site private provider at a cost of over £10k for 44 weeks. This has happened to many students. Of course they make it work, many have to, however I do think there needs to be more awareness.

Exeter halls are ££ anyway however this is at least £2k on top. If your YP gets the min loan it’s +£6k that they or their parents have to find before living costs etc. Plus once you’ve signed your tenancy there is no option to move into campus halls.

I know this isn’t just an Exeter issue, there is another thread about Warwick, however it was a shock for us and very disappointing for DC. So when your YP is choosing a uni look closely at accommodation!

Exeter Uni does have an agreement with Exeter City Council that they will seek to accommodate more students on campus and/or in off-campus PBSA in the medium to long term, so that local families are not priced out of terraced housing. This is all in the public domain and was covered in the planning hearings for the imminent West Park building project, which will deliver a large tranche of new high-quality accommodation on the Streatham campus. Birks Grange Village is also being redeveloped so as to increase the proportion of self-catering and ensuite accommodation, which they find their students overwhelmingly want these days.

Unfortunately the original build date for West Park and the accompanying redevelopment of Birks Grange was lost because planning permission was refused at first and the plans had to be slightly reworked before permission was granted. There seems to have been significant further slippage for one reason or another, so that the whole project is about 2 years behind and shiny new accommodation blocks, which on the original plans should have been available now, are mere holes in the ground following demolition of obsolete buildings.

So it is a temporary problem at Exeter, which does have a coherent plan going forward, but that doesn’t make it any easier for 2025 or prospective 2026 freshers (my DD included).

@HighburyHope High quality equals high prices! I assume these are for y2 onwards students as they live in the city. How does this help freshers? They don’t live in hmos in terraced houses do they?

@TizerorFizz
The new West Park is on campus, for 1st year and maybe PG.
There were a number of smaller blocks demolished to make way for bigger blocks, I.e. to increase capacity.
Newer is always more expensive!

@stubiff Well that makes sense but it doesn’t help with housing in Exeter if there’s more students in halls on campus. More students just puts pressure on housing for locals. Obviously I don’t know the figures but I doubt Exeter residents will see much change.

@TizerorFizz I’m not sure what the basis of your critique of Exeter (city)’s planning policy is? More students only put pressure on housing for locals if the additional students are not accommodated by the university, either directly or in partnership with private PBSA providers. The city council supports the university’s campus development plans specifically because they allow growth without encroaching further on the city’s housing stock. It has also brought in stringent rules making it impossible to get a new HMO licence in most parts of the city.

The university’s ambition, reflected in city council documents, is in due course to accommodate all full-time students who want accommodation. It’s taking longer than hoped to achieve that, but it seems to me to be in everyone’s interests (town & gown) that they accomplish it.

Yes agree, in fact cheapest uni Exeter option is cheaper than cheapest uni Sheffield option. I think tho that private shared housing might be cheaper in Sheffield – big city with greater range of housing stock? I don’t know Exeter very well tho so I may be wrong on that.

Bless you
my eldest son got a first and masters from a lower tier
now he is at 24 being headhunted for his speciality

ohh and he’s autistic, had to leave school without a levels and did a foundation year

If your daughter had east park as one of her options price there is now £9,114.93

Just to make the point that your child might give a preference for the cheapest accommodation a university has. They might not get that accomodation and might still end up in expensive accommodation they can't afford.

Thanks.
I think that this has firmed up my dds plan to apply for a deferred place.

@FiveFoxes True, this could be the case.
Exeter, quite helpfully, publish the number of applicants per hall/type. The main S/C cheaper campus one is 1.3:1, ie slightly over subscribed, so you have a fair chance if it’s your 1st choice. The second campus one is 0.7:1 which is under subscribed.
The ones that are massively over subscribed are the en-suite, newer, more expensive ones.

@HighburyHope
I think what Tizer is saying is that there are generally more students and they need to be housed somewhere in years 2 and 3, so that would be in non Uni accommodation.
As you say, not an issue for freshers if Uni has enough accommodation which some don’t for the increased numbers.
But main issue for Exeter, and possibly other places, is the building work. Not totally new, as that just adds to stock, but replacing/refurbishing blocks, as numbers decrease in the short term.

@HighburyHope Of course additional students in y1 add pressures to housing in y2-3 as they move into the city! It’s obvious. All universities have expanded and nearly all cities have a shortage of accommodation as a result. Unless universities accommodate all students on site, and obviously non campus cannot, it’s an ongoing issue. A new (replacement) hall or even 2 solves very little of numbers there go up and up via aggressive recruitment.

We can’t blame the Uni(s). They are trying to maximise income, due to the reasons we know, so a lot of them are just trying to stay afloat.

@stubiff I know that is what @TizerorFizz is saying, but that is because she is not reading what I have written or what is in the public domain. The agreed growth strategy between the university and the city council is to build/acquire enough PBSA beds on and off campus to accommodate all additional full-time students, in all years, precisely so that they do not spill out into the city’s housing stock after the first year.

(The goal was originally to accommodate 75% of the additional “growth” students, but it became clear in the planning hearings for the East Park development that the council’s requirement had moved to at least 100% of the additional headcount and preferably more, so as to free up some of what is currently HMO stock).

Clearly there are major headaches in delivering this at the moment. But that is the plan. Not my plan, @TizerorFizz, so if you think it’s obviously bad you’d better let the council/uni know direct.

@HighburyHope
Thanks, you obv know a lot more about it.
I’m only coming at it from a DS applying point of view, but I have skimmed the West Park plans (previously) but wasn’t looking for Yr 2 onwards implications!

Isn’t this another university financial disaster waiting to happen? Universities building lots of expensive student accommodation when at the same time students (& their parents) are finding it financially difficult/impossible to pay for them as the maintenance loan is too low and the tops ups for families too great. So the trend is for students to go to a university within commuting distance. (& I know that is impossible for lots of people, but that is the trend). Perhaps Exeter has the geographic position and reputation to buck this trend.

So literally the opposite to what you originally posted then? The “cheaper” unis aren’t lower tier at all, your YP in fact didn’t even get an offer from them (said as someone who is slightly bitter that you’re implying my degree is less than because it was in an affordable city).

But I honestly think getting a job is one of the best things a uni student can do. I’m involved with a lot of grad recruiting at my employer (where we get tens if not hundreds of applicants for every grad vacancy) and it’s always those who’ve had a job that interview best and have the most experience to draw on, and it’s often a candidate with a 2.1 and even irrelevant work experience that is looked upon more favourably than a first with no experience (also said as someone who had to work through uni but walked into a grad role that saw my salary increase five fold in ten years).

It’s not what the data suggests. East Park en-suite and shared, I.e. the newest blocks are the most over subscribed at 4:1 for the former.
Think a lot of SE go to Exeter, so it’s obv those with money!

Sorry if anyone else has said this, but watch out in year 2. My dc and her roomies had to start looking for private rental accommodation in the November of their first year to guarantee accommodation. I saw a video of kids camping in sleeping bags outside an Oxford accommodation office waiting for it to open, in a bid to guarantee accommodation.

@stubiff Do not ever assume everyone is rich in the SE. In my view en suite means they are not available to ordinary students. Far too expensive and maybe Exeter needs to attract the less well off!

@Nothernwannabe You are correct. Massive mortgages in the SE curtail spare money and Cornwall isn’t wealthy from what I’ve seen. Of course they get their own Exeter offering. Overall no university should expand.

The ones that are massively over subscribed are the en-suite, newer, more expensive ones.

Which rather undercuts claims made by PPs that students can’t afford the more expensive accommodation!

as a further word of warning for Second yer uni students/parents - please be on high alert to read the leases before signing.

DD1 and her housemates signed a lease, for a private house, which I have been told is standard, that they have to pay half rent for the summer months but cannot live there.

Unihomes, a company that does utilities packages for students, was charging all of the people in the house share from the summer months, despite them not being allowed to access the property and it took quite a bit of escalation to resolve.

@stubiff - could I ask for a link to the data about accommodation oversubscription? I have a child who might go to uni in autumn 2026 and while Exeter might be too much of a stretch grades-wise, I'd be interested to learn as much as I can. We're not exactly very well-off financially and this info might help to rule it out or not - would be awful to land a place there and then not be able to afford the limited accommodation...

The point of this thread was to highlight for future applicants the situation regarding accommodation.

Exeter asks students to select 5, sone my DD selected were less than 1:1 so we thought they would get on campus. Perhaps and probably the problem was they said they preferred enduute although 1 selected was shared. All if these were £8k+. The one offered was private at £10k+ and a 15 min walk to campus.

@MyTommyGunDont- I specifically said that DC, despite applying to Leeds and Manchester (which btw I have experience of and regard just as highly as Exeter for the subject DC is studying) did NOT receive offers from them. I stand by my comment, and sorry if it offends, that often the lower tier unis are cheaper however imo a maths degree from Warwick is not the same as a maths degree from Sussex.

So I suppose in a way some posters are correct, cut your cloth, DC can’t afford the expensive cities like Exeter, Bath, Warwick go for a cheaper area. You will still have a huge debt and a degree. That’s up to the individual however personally I believe despite all this ‘blind’ recruitment there is still ranking by employers. Of course there will outliers but I’m talking generally.

Uni Accommodation given the huge cost and effect on housing needs to be addressed asap otherwise unis will see applicants vote with their feet.