Accommodation, an ever-increasing burden for students

The supply of rental accommodation is decreasing and rents are becoming more and more expensive. A headache for students, whose accommodation represents the main item of expenditure.

With limited supply and prices continuing to rise, finding accommodation in large university cities has never been so difficult. obstacle course for students especially in Paris.

“I’m willing to rent anything,” says Alice Martins, 18, from Lorraine, still without accommodation, cowardly and discouraged, a week before starting her first year of law school in the capital.

The young woman, who started looking as soon as she heard about her job on Parcoursup, discovered the narrowness of the rental market, its costly but also its ruthless solvency guarantees.

“My mother is my only guarantor. She’s a school teacher, not a CEO,” Alice Martins screams.

“At each visit there were a lot of people, people queuing on the stairs, we have the feeling that the demand is too high compared to the supply,” says Emma Hugues, 20, a communications student in Paris.

“He’s leaving in an hour”

“We have nothing this year,” confirms Katia Bouzit, director of a Parisian real estate agency. “When we post an ad for ‘student’ accommodation on our site, 70 people apply and within an hour the ad is gone,” she continues.

Families no longer leaving their small premises, unoccupied apartments, the low number of new homes built, the transfer of properties to tourist rentals are all contributing to the drying up of the market in Paris and in the large university cities.

“Even when I go to look in agencies, they put up sheets saying that there is no more accommodation available,” testifies Emmanuel Arsac, a 23-year-old student from Lille. “And the price increased compared to previous years.

“The rental tension is the same everywhere, throughout France,” confirms Loïc Cantin, president of Fnaim.

To avoid suffering from this situation, students are sometimes forced to maintain their studio during the summer, with additional costs associated with it. And internships in another city can be a headache.

8,000 fewer homes per year

«Last year we had 13% less rotations delivered by tenants at the time of expiration, this year in particular there are 30% less holidays», underlines the president of Fnaim.

In Paris, where 392,000 students are enrolled in higher education, or 36% more than at the beginning of the 2000s, “there are only 350,000 private rental housing units left. This number is decreasing by 8,000 units per year,” explains Jacques Baudrier, Communist deputy for housing at the Paris city hall.

“There is nothing left to rent,” but “80%” of private rentals meet the criteria sought by student profiles, that is, “from studios to one-bedroom apartments,” reports Jacques Baudrier.

In July, the elected official had launched a “cry of alarm” against the risk of finding himself with tens of thousands of students “on the streets” at the beginning of the school year.

Accommodation, expense number 1

Back to school after the new school year, student unions are warning about housing, by far “the largest expense for students,” according to Fage.

According to the student union’s calculations, rent alone represents on average more than 45% of a student’s daily living costs in the provinces (520 euros), and even 50% in Ile-de-France (688 euros).

The insufficiency of the social rental stock is highlighted. The Crous offer nearly 175,000 places for a total of 240,000 social student housing units in 2024. This is one Crous unit for 17 students (one for 34 in Ile-de-France and one for 48 in Paris). Too little, according to many stakeholders in higher education.

The outgoing government, which has set itself a roadmap on the issue for 2023, highlights the 30,000 new Crous housing units delivered since 2017 and still promises a total of 65,000 new properties available by the end of Macron’s second five-year term.

In June, before the early legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron issued a “mea culpa” to the press on access to housing for young people: “This is an issue on which we have not made enough progress and where the response has been too timid, and I am responsible for that.”

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