Rising student dropout rates may be linked to high rents and commuting, university chief warns

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/09/02/rising-student-dropout-rates-may-be-linked-to-high-rents-and-commuting-university-chief-warns/

Posted by funpubquiz

13 Comments

  1. Has the University Chief thought of conducting exit interviews with students that drop out to get actual data?

  2. I was lucky to have went to college during the recession. As rent currently is there is absolutely no way i would have been able to afford college.

  3. Another long-term chronic symptom of the housing disaster. Higher Education is once again becoming the sole purvue of the wealthy and exacerbating the wealth divide, causing more feedback loops in generational inequality which is fertile ground for social problems like crime, drug addiction and homelessness.

    Not to mention that in a generation’s time this means we will have far fewer native graduates than we do now, and our tech-based MNC-reliant service economy which demands a well-educated workforce will either collapse or become fueled entirely by well-educated migrant workers and by children of generational wealth who are the only ones who could afford college; both of which are recipes for widening our social divides even further.

    The housing disaster is the foundation for a bleak bleak future for Ireland in all avenues of human life. Our children’s opportunities are being sold to the highest bidder; our government fumbling in a greasy till.

  4. TheFreemanLIVES on

    Huh…so there might be unintended consequences to neglecting housing other than the collapsing birth rate…as Simon would say…”Peculiar” 🤔

  5. I had to take the 120 to Dublin 5 days a week for 3 years (had a year abroad) and I worked part-time on weekends just to afford to have bus fare and some money for lunch. Can’t imagine how much worse it is nowadays. Was very fortunate I could still live in Kildare with my folks until I finished studying. Even back then finding accommodation was rough in Dublin.

  6. LuckyConstruction546 on

    I have been renting out two out of four otherwise empty bedrooms to students in the past few years. 

    It does not make sense to make more bedrooms available with the hard cap of 14k on rent-a-room scheme, if I wanted to rent out all four unused rooms, I would make less in rent than now when renting out two. 

    The government is dis-incentivising homeowners from putting more rooms on the market, they should increase the annual threshold amount, or modify the hard cap mechanism in the next budget.

    It is not going to solve all problems, but it would release some pressure from room market while more student housing is being built.

  7. €900 per month for a studio on South Circular road when I was in college. It was a shoebox, mould on the wall, dodgy pipes rattling in the night.

    Count myself lucky that I went to college 10 years ago, seeing how much worse things have gotten.

    Back then, I assumed we were in the tough times. Never imagined it would be like this down the line. Students don’t have it easy trying to get ahead now.