Housing capacity blown
A month after the start of the semester, the waiting lists for student housing keep growing.
På norsk;)
- The fact that the waiting lists don't decrease in size in the course of the semester is a new trend we're witnessing, and we are working on charting the reasons why this is happening, says Lisbeth Dyrberg, CEO of the Foundation for Student Life.
From about 2300 applicants around the start of the semester, the number of people waiting for a place in the Foundation's student housing complexes has increased to 2600, an increase of about 13 percent.
- One thing is made clear by this: We need more student housing units, says Velferdsting leader Øyvind Gjengaar, who despairs at the lack of government support for new student housing projects.
- At the start of the semester, several students move to the city from outside, and need a place to stay immediately. Due to the heated housing market, students now are badly off economically, and apply for student housing during the semester in search of cheaper accomodation, Gjengaar says. According to Gjengaar, insufficent student financing is an additional problem.
- We have seen a marked increase in the number of applicants during the last three years, director of Studenthousing Tom Olstad says, referring to the extreme increase from a mere 300 waiting in line exactly two years ago.
Unequal rights
Gjengaar explains the dramatic increase both with higher prices in Oslo's private housing market, and with a growing number of international students. International students at the University of Oslo are guaranteed a place in the Foundation's student housing.
- The increase in the international student population is fine and well, but this assumes that we have enough housing units that Norwegian applicants aren't supplanted. Looking for a place to stay in the housing market in Oslo is about as difficult to do from Lakselv (in the far north of Norway) as it is to do from abroad, so in the long run, this could even lead to people opting out of education because they can't find a place to live. In that scenario, this starts affecting the equal rights to education, Gjengaar says.
- Internationalisation is a part of a political agenda, so it's a problem that the government doesn't see the necessity of more student housing units, Benjamin Jonsrud of the leftist student political group Venstrealliansen adds.
