The St Andrews Wealth Gap: A Deep Dive into Experiences with Accommodation

It’s no secret that living in St Andrews is expensive. In 2022, the student body faced a housing crisis — one caused by an increase in student enrollment after the pandemic and a shortage of private housing due to a cap on Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMO) and landlords choosing to rent to tourists over students. This increased demand meant housing prices skyrocketed.

Although the university put forth initiatives to lower the general cost of living — subsidising bus passes, offering a food larder, providing campus food discounts — many are still struggling to find affordable accommodation.

Fourth-year American student Abbie Elkan has lived in three private accommodation residences over the last few years. She currently lives in a flat with four people. The process of finding a place was nothing short of gruelling, she said. She described applying to over fifteen accommodations, asking anyone she vaguely knew about plans for their flats, joining “sketchy” Facebook groups, and video touring places while home for the summer. The market is so competitive, Elkan said, that within minutes of leasing agencies posting about a property, over 40 people would have applied.

“It's like you’re putting yourself as a Bachelorette candidate trying to get picked,” Elkan said. “It’s like you are proposing yourself to Love Island, and the Love Island producers are deciding whether or not you can get to a villa. You're put on a waitlist and promised nothing.”

Once you’ve secured a flat, the problems don’t end there. According to Elkan, landlords don’t keep properties up to date because they know students, out of desperation, will fill them regardless. The faucet in her flat has been leaking for weeks, and her landlord has yet to respond to her queries.

Living in private accommodation means setting up your own gas, electric, and Wi-Fi — a process Elkan wished the University provided more guidance on. For example, many students are unaware that they qualify for an exemption to the council tax: a fee that covers rubbish collection, water bills, etc. The UK’s current energy crisis has also increased utility bills across the country. Last year, Elkan went into credit card debt trying to pay off her energy bills.

Beyond rent increases, Elkan said her landlord told her and her flatmates, after they had signed the lease, that they would need to pay the accumulated rent every three months instead of the standard monthly basis. Four of the five students living in her flat are international students, so transferring large amounts of money in international funds, requiring a currency exchange each time, is “extortionate”, Elkan said.

She works a minimum-wage job as a barista in town, and due to her visa, isn’t able to work more than twenty hours a week. Without the support of her family, Elkan said she would not be able to afford living in St Andrews.

“If you would have told me when I was applying here how messed up this housing situation would have been, and how many times I've cried or been stressed, like, am I going to have a place to live next year, I don't know if I would have done it in hindsight,” Elkan said. “And I think a lot of people agree [with me] on that.”

Postgraduate Estonian student Gertrud Leiten tried to find private accommodation in St Andrews, but due to cost, settled for living in Leuchars — a town ten minutes away — in a University-owned house. “A lot of places in St Andrews are quite expensive if they’re not through the uni — or they’re hard to find — and are way too expensive to justify it,” Leiten said.

Many students, due to lack of housing or affordability, have been pushed out of St Andrews, to places like Leuchars, Dundee, and Edinburgh. From her home, Leiten walks twelve minutes to the bus station, rides for fifteen minutes, walks an additional fifteen to class, and then repeats the whole process again in reverse on her way home.

She commutes into town daily because Leuchars is so small that there aren’t places like coffee shops to study in. She said her neighbouring houses are either empty or lived in by community members, so she also comes to St Andrews to socialise.

“There’s not really a lot to do in Leuchars,” Leiten said. “It has a pub, a shop, and a church. It feels like a village. It’d be cool if there was a better community of people who [were] living there because I haven’t met anyone while I’m in uni who actually lives in Leuchars.”

Although the university subsidises 75 per cent of students’ monthly bus passes, the bus schedule changes day-to-day. Because the buses don’t operate late on weeknights, she said she could only apply to certain jobs in St Andrews and has had to cut time with friends short to catch a ride home, especially since the wait between buses can be as long as an hour.

Postgraduate German student Carla Schluter was originally told that all university accommodation options were full, but then a spot opened for her in The Grange — a neighbourhood of newly-built townhouses for postgraduate students, a 25-minute walk outside of town.

After her first week living in The Grange, Schluter bought a bike, since she struggled carrying heavy shopping bags for her half an hour walk home. 

Schluter worked for three years to be able to afford coming to St Andrews, yet she said she pays more living in one of the “cheaper” housing options in St Andrews than what she ever did living in Munich, somewhere she said is “known for its insanely high leases.”

First-year Scottish student Michael Wood lives in a catered, shared room in John Burnet Hall. Most first-year students are guaranteed accommodations through the University, but there are still wealth disparities amongst the options. For example, Wood, who works in hospitality and has help from his parents to fund his housing, said he specifically tailored his application to avoid living in some of the more expensive accommodation options.

“Nothing in St Andrews is worth the price because it's such a popular place with tourists,” Wood said. “But I suppose I'm not too unhappy with the price itself. I think it's reasonably fair for the location I've got. I'm sure if you compare it to Glasgow Uni or something, they’d be shocked by how much we pay for accommodations.”

First-year French-Algerian student Sofia Ait Djebbara lives in Student Space, a brand-new private student accommodation that’s a 30-minute walk outside of town. Student Space, along with Ayton House and East Shore, is a dorm-style facility that provides students with, as Ait Djebbara puts it, “everything you might need day-to-day,” from a library and gym to food, laundry, social spaces, and even a shuttle to and from classes. Next year, Student Space will expand to offer a cafeteria and coffee shop.

However, many of the interviewed students said living in a private accommodation like this was not an option due to their high costs. Ait Djebbara said that being a full-time student, without time for a job, means she’s overly aware of even the small costs associated with living at Space — paying £2.80 per load of laundry and £1.20 for the dryers, £1 each way for the shuttle, and £7 for a taxi into town on mornings when she misses the shuttle and is late for class.

Two years since the housing crisis came to light, the financial burden of living in St Andrews hasn't been resolved. And it seems like no one accommodation gets it right.

If you or anyone you know is in need of assistance amidst the current cost-of-living crisis, university resources can be found online at www.st-andrews.ac.uk/cost-of-living.

Illustration: Isabella Abbott