Bloody universities

After eldest has ‘issues’ with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years, I’ve just dropped off youngest and feel rather annoyed at another university.

Halls.
Poorly maintained, feels unloved and cheaply run. Filthy carpet in his room and strongly smells of damp.

Kitchen with cupboards barely hanging on and multiple repairs.

Bathroom with all sorts of dodgy MDF repairs instead of properly tiled.

Grey carpet, pink walls, grey woodwork and wood chip everywhere. So ‘1970’ hospital’ vibe.

Peeling paint on all the outside woodwork.

The storage room promised is locked – and they think it’s a mistake to have it on the listing as no one uses it but the maintenance people. ‘Bike storage’ is four Sheffield stands for over 100 students.

Not a picture or mirror in the building. And you can’t put your own up.

WiFi and ethernet cable not working today.

Small amount of gravelly outdoor space full of weeds and nowhere to sit.

Collect the keys elsewhere in town. No one at the halls. No maps to find your way around the halls.

No recycling information or how your heater works. One phone number on a small bit of paper with phone number for an ‘RA'(?) who works evenings only.

No ‘welcome to your home, we hope you like it, why not come to the common room to meet some new people’ effort at all – and we only found the common room by accident searching for the storage, his flatmates didn’t even know there was one!

At least the common room had been refurbished and felt lovely, really nicely done. Oh, and a local charity group left a plant for each flat to share and look after.

But seriously. They’re clearing £600k across 89 rooms in one 1980/90’s built hall, £6750 each a year. And they can’t even clean the room properly.

FFS Edinburgh Uni.

The teaching better be top notch.

One main thing going to Uni taught me was to the Uni students are an inconvenience and they would much rather not have them!

Attending university isn’t compulsory. Tell the lazy bastard to get a job!!

Attending university isn’t compulsory. Tell the lazy bastard to get a job!!

?

Tell the lazy bastard to get a job!!

You’re nice, aren’t you.

LOLOLOLOLOL

Thank God LittleMissMC resisted our encouragement to apply to Edinburgh when we were up there a couple of weeks ago, though we did fancy popping up to visit.

Been to an open day at Bath uni today – slightly dated but solid rooms with shared bathrooms, or an extra £50 a week got you a more modern ensuite – smaller room,  from which they’d taken a chunk for the ensuite.

She decided she’d sooner share a bathroom and drink the £50 a week

When I was a student back in the 70s the hall I was in was damp and had dodgy electrics. The result of many, many serious water fights.

My ? was actually a laughing emoji.

Scotroutes knows the score…

IDK, #1 child finished at Essex this year. Lovely campus. Nice accommodation. Even year 2 in an outside house but through some university control was OK.

#2 goes back to LJMU tomorrow. Accommodation the past 2 years has been OK. Not perfect, but tolerable. And they’ve raised maintenance requests when needed. These have been fulfilled to typically English standards.

I’d note that accommodation and tuition are independent things.

Edit. The welcome at LJMU each year has been better in terms of information and freebies than I got at manchester in the 80s. The welcome at Essex was encouraging each year.

Maybe Edinburgh doesn’t think it has to try? But I see Manchester is changing its Owens Park accommodation and there are many blocks of seemingly luxurious (by 1980s standards) accommodation available.

I’ve stayed in the halls at Bath, had a bit of a pressure washer friendly vibe about it. Seen far worse places that didn’t.

After eldest has ‘issues’ with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years, I’ve just dropped off youngest and feel rather annoyed at another university.

Interesting gripe. What do they did about it? All universities seem eager to improve. All English universities seem to seek feedback and rely on student ratings of quality.

My first year halls were so bad that they were demolished a year after I graduated. They were a wreck wehn I was there.

We saw this as a good thing, we didn’t really have to look after anything, so one minded if we rode bikes down the stairs, or drew chalk outlines of corpses on the carpets or spent sunny days chilling up on the roof or having water fights or whatever. People who lived in nicer halls paid more and had to be really careful with them, they had much less fun

It was considerably cheaper in my day though…

?

?

Sorry Scotroutes.

Back from Salford. Tale of two different types of accommodation. New halls are ace. Sadly, my youngest is in the older halls… filthy and quite frankly not suitable for occupation. Still, I’m sure they’ll make the most of it.

Salford – I stayed in halls there in the 90s. Absolute dump, built in the 70s, but demolished since.

Salford itself was a shithole in the 90s – but from everything I’ve heard seems to be doing a lot better these days!

I work at a uni now (an ex poly) and the student halls are (genuinely) pretty good. The newest block is fully passivhaus certified, which is very cool. It’s still alarmingly expensive, but that seems to be the way of things now. They insist that they don’t really make a profit on it, but… Surely they must, at those rates? Or will do, in time…

Interesting gripe. What do they did about it?

They lost 60% if the masters course, who all dropped out at grad level.
Complaint action? He’s no aware of any action, and certainly no reply to his last email halfway through final year to head of course.

@andrewh – Roehyde Hall at Hertfordshire Uni by any chance?

No, Mansfield Hall at Reading. Not the nice Victorian building at the front, the dodgy 60s one behind it.

I thought I’d got lucky when I arrived and saw the nice building, and then whoever it was doing the meeting and greeting said ‘I’ll show you to your room’ and it went downhill from there

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.450005,-0.9640981,176m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

That’s the new one. It didn’t have courtyards and things when I was there, just mushrooms in the bathrooms

This is in the weekend’s Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/sep/07/rats-mould-damp-uks-biggest-student-homes-provider-faces-legal-action-over-poor-accommodation

Sounds like a lot of students are getting exploited in their accommodation.

Proud alumni of Strathclydes Birkbeck halls.

Shitty halls are part of the experience, if you are sober enough to notice you are doing it wrong.

At the other end of things, here in Cork you can get a room for €12k upwards for 38 weeks!!!, It may well be nice and new with a cinema and gym, but €12k+ just for your accommodation! And note the even more expensive rooms are all sold out.

https://yugo.com/en-gb/global/ireland/cork/lee-point?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8–2BhCHARIsAF_w1gx7c48JUsIr9UQVb091DbToixcKc9FBA6i2ThG8-CfQq6jNiwGlC8UaArKBEALw_wcB

Poorly maintained, feels unloved and cheaply run. Filthy carpet in his room and strongly smells of damp.

Kitchen with cupboards barely hanging on and multiple repairs.

Bathroom with all sorts of dodgy MDF repairs instead of properly tiled.

Grey carpet, pink walls, grey woodwork and wood chip everywhere. So ‘1970’ hospital’ vibe.

Peeling paint on all the outside woodwork.

The storage room promised is locked – and they think it’s a mistake to have it on the listing as no one uses it

I can’t see the problem,this is standard fare for( almost ) every student flat in our big cities. It will prepare him (and his new best friends)for the absolute joy of house hunting in the future years.  –>> hoof scum landlords in the slats emoji <<–  ;-)

Spent the first few weeks of my 2nd year sleeping under the desk in the bursers office with my flatmates since our new build flat wasnt finished. This was ok at weekends but a pita during the week when the burser came in at 0845.

This was in 1981

While I wholeheartedly agree that the provided accommodation should be up to a suitable habitable standard, speaking as someone who provides student support at university, you would not believe the level of squaller that a significant proportion of students live in when in student accommodation.

A surprising number of student have very little concept personal hygiene and the state that many of the rooms are left in is absolutely appalling, and the costs of cleaning and repairs to a high standard on a regular basis become prohibitive, especially as costs for universities have become further squeezed in recent years.

Personally i would prefer the fees to be spent on quality education than hotel quality rooms if the student can’t be arsed to look after them.

I’ll leave this quiz here.

https://thetab.com/uk/2018/10/04/quiz-is-this-bedroom-from-your-unis-halls-or-a-prison-83409

We’ve had the conversation with family and friends about universities. I feel the cost is extortionate, so unless you really need a degree for your chosen career, it seems like an excessive cost. Unfortunately we seem to have been conditioned to assume that going to Uni is the “normal” thing to do.

27 years ago when I went to uni it wasn’t as bad as you didn’t pay fees and things were generally cheaper. When I read about Universities going bust I struggle to understand, based on the fact that they’re charging each student £6,000 a year.

Our eldest decided to forgo university as he felt that getting 50k in debt wasn’t worth it. Fair play to him he got a proper job at 18 and now at 20 has bought a house and moved out. Don’t tell him but I’m very proud of him :-)

Unfortunately we seem to have been conditioned to assume that going to Uni is the “normal” thing to do.

He’s had a year out.
He’s had no pressure from us, and nearly went to Japan to work, but has chosen to go. His call – and his interests line up with the degree he is doing.

you would not believe the level of squaller that a significant proportion of students live in when in student accommodation.

This. Spent a summer cleaning 75 flats (each four or five room) in the student halls, back in the 1980s. Some were empty (but dirty), most were full of junk (some of which was actually worth salvaging) and quite a few were pretty much destroyed. One room was totally full of cardboard boxes, and every surface was covered in dust/grease from incense sticks. In many flats the lino tiled kitchen and bathroom floors were black and sticky, rather than the actual yellow colour. We used acid to clean the toilets, and often just replaced the seats entirely.

Young kids learning how to live can be pretty disgusting.

The teaching better be top notch.

It won’t be. HTH.

I noticed they were finally getting around to demolishing the halls I stayed in during my first year (1988) this summer. They were pretty decrepit when I lived there!

Its all part of the experience I have a second child going to Manchester Uni next week, did not get what she had chosen but my Son advised her best place to be is Fallow fields.  I could be wrong but halls of residence is a big part of the uni experience and certainly where they will make friends and most probably party every night what more could you want.

There is loads of choice you could easily go private from £9k -£15k per annum.

Did the on line review reflect what you found?

There is loads of choice you could easily go private from £9k -£15k per annum.

Ah yes, of course more money = more privilege.
I’m disappointed, and think it errs on a social justice issue, that a Uni owned halls (which is a charity for the education of all) sees fit to provide less than well looked after halls.
I get it’s not ensuite, that it is smaller, that it’s not as cool.
But they’ve failed at the basics of clean, they said there were facilities which don’t exist (secure bike storage), but they’ve provided parking for the wealthy..
It’s disappointing.

Daughter is at one of the poorer colleges in Cambridge. The halls (large house) she was in last year was rented by her college from one of the wealthier colleges, at pretty much market rates- it’s being pulled down this year due to the state of the structure. One of the things emphasised during look-arounds at Cambridge is that accommodation is remarkably cheap- you only pay for the weeks you’re there, and rents are generally subsidised/capped by the colleges. My daughter applied for college A, was turned down, then pooled and received an offer from college B- which means we’re paying north of £200 a week, for substandard accommodation and we have to pay it for the whole academic year, not just the weeks of occupancy. Grates, when other colleges have huge endowments and incomes, but are still pursuing elitist rather than egalitarian policies (this extends to other areas of life there).

If you don’t like the state of university accommodation, lobby the government to review tuition fees that are currently worth 60% of what they were the last time they were reviewed.

Otherwise the institutions will bleed to death slowly, selling the family silver in the interim and losing the best researchers/lecturers to overseas.

It really is that simple.

IIRC there is a ongoing legal argument going on ab out Uni halls in that are they covered by the meager rental protections we have and standards for habitable rooms

Many of these would simply be illegal to let to non students again IIRC

SS20 you can tell your daughter The Young Ones was based on the members of a household half way along Landcross Road.

After eldest has ‘issues’ with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years

Phew – you mean uni, had me worried for a while.

I was at Edinburgh but was lucky. Unfortunately the awesome house that we shared got sold off by the university alongside the neighbouring Graham Brown House – home of the mountaineering club.   One set of halls there was demolished and rebuilt by the time I returned to have another go at being an Edinburgh student.

I saw a news story that one of the new accommodation providers which has blocks all over most university cities was being accused of mouldy substandard accommodation.

All the best for the coming years.

My daughter applied for college A, was turned down, then pooled and received an offer from college B- which means we’re paying north of £200 a week, for substandard accommodation and we have to pay it for the whole academic year, not just the weeks of occupancy.

£200 a week!, how is that possible to afford?.

My best mates kid is 16 and wants to study international development or similar and she’s absolutely bricking it at the costs (Scotland btw), she’s a single mum due to husband dying from cancer 6 years past and thanks to joint/arthritis issues being inflamed by covid can’t work and relies on benefits and is just about holding it together as is, are halls of residence for the first year covered by the uni or is that an extra cost?, christ knows how she’s going to pay for the 2nd/3rd years if she has to pay for housing etc.

The state of education is **** in this country, no money no play in action

@somafunk SAAS will probably give full “grant”/loan payment in your friends case (will at least cover accommodation) and unis will have bursaries that can be applied for. Also Lions club and round table etc will give money for books and other necessities. There are funds out there that will help little amounts but they will make the difference.

As I understand it, tuition fees in Scotland are very low (for Scottish people) compared to England.

£200 a week is the going rate in Edinburgh for a room student land, it’s not going to get cheaper in 2nd year unfortunately