‘I'm just going to stop attending lectures’
Increasing numbers of Cork students are resorting to staying in hostels in a desperate effort to keep their college dreams alive.
Thanks to an ever-deepening accommodation crisis, thousands of third level students studying on Leeside are forced to endure often torturous daily commutes to attend lectures. These commutes can be up to five hours a day for some students according to MTU Cork Student Union President, Richard Noonan. As a last resort, more and more are turning to couch surfing and shared dormitory hostels in order to attend lectures and keep costs down.
The popular Brú Hostel in Cork city confirmed that it is seeing more and more students taking beds on weekdays recently.
Mr Noonan said: “It has been an ever-growing issue all the time throughout the years. It's really, really hard to hear. Students are going to be forced out of third level education,” he added.
With rent prices so high and availability so low, Mr Noonan said students are settling for very low standard accommodation.
He said: “Because it's rough, they're staying in really bad quality places. There are stories of small houses with mould, like houses that aren't kept up to code or anything, that aren't even registered.”
Cork currently sits rock bottom of the table nationally when it comes to public ownership of purpose-built student accommodation with just 16% according to the latest Higher Education Authority (HEA) figures.
The next lowest are Galway with 36% and Dublin with 40%.
One student studying in Cork told this newspaper they had considered using a hostel to be near college, but now feel their only option is to stop attending lectures.
They said: “I've decided to not bother with the hostel; it's just going to end up causing more problems than it solves. Instead, I'm just going to stop attending lectures, only attend the parts of each module which are mandatory, and basically teach myself the material outside of class.
“Accommodation has been a problem in Cork for over ten years. The city just blew €7 million to turn the Peace Park into a hideous modern art installation, meanwhile the real problems that cripple the city show absolutely no sign of being addressed and are only getting worse.”
Last October, students from Cork’s colleges took part in the Raise the Roof campaign demanding that the Government raise the budget for housing across all sectors with an aim to lowering rents and increasing availability. Currently, students living in purpose built private student accommodation in Cork city can expect to pay up to €320 a week.
MTU’s Richard Noonan continued: “Whenever it's talked about in the Government, it's always as if it was a new issue that snuck up on them out of nowhere, but this has been building for, I want to say, nearly the last ten years.
“Unfortunately, even with the construction of newer accommodations down the road, it's going to be too little too late, I fear, unless there's a more drastic shift in the short term,” he added.