Uni staff urged to be landlords for students as rent crisis threatens education economy
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Staff at one of Melbourne’s biggest universities are being urged to offer rooms to international students amid concerns they will turn their backs on Australia as the rent crisis stings.
Monash University Student Union said this week that the housing situation had become so dire that options that weren’t “ideal” needed to be considered.
International student Xinyu Zhang says it is difficult for international students to find a house that is safe and affordable in Melbourne.Credit: Penny Stephens
Union president Sebastian Schultz said the union was encouraging tutors or educators to help house international students.
“We’ve gotten to such a point that … we need to reconsider options that we knew weren’t ideal, and we ruled out because we thought we weren’t at that stage,” Schultz said. “It looks like we’re at that stage.”
International students are flooding back to Australia after years of COVID-19 travel restrictions, but are arriving as rental vacancies plunge, particularly in Melbourne. Many are forced to choose substandard accommodation or risk finding themselves without a home, a disincentive that threatens to undermine revenue from a key industry for the country.
The Monash student union surveyed more than 100 international students in January and February. About 95 per cent said they had trouble finding accommodation, often due to discrimination or a lack of rental history.
A separate survey of 21,000 prospective and current international students from more than 100 countries – conducted in February and March by international education specialists IDP Connect – found 51 per cent were reconsidering studying overseas because of rent increases and the cost of living.
And things are about to get worse. International students must return to face-to-face learning from June 30 and China will no longer recognise foreign degrees that are taken online during or after the autumn semester, causing a scramble for accommodation.
Students heading to Melbourne face a rental vacancy rate that, at 0.8 per cent, is worse than in Sydney.
University of Melbourne Student Union president Hiba Adam said all students were struggling with accommodation, but it would be amplified for international students without a demonstrable rental history.
She said billeting wasn’t something the union had considered, but that it wouldn’t fix the broader problem.
International education remains important to Australia’s economy, contributing $29 billion in 2022, according to Universities Australia.
But Angela Lehmann, from educational consultants The Lygon Group, said if students couldn’t find accommodation they may just not choose Australia.
“It’s certainly not a good incentive for students to be coming to study here,” she said.
Australian Homestay Network director Stefan Morgan – which organises accommodation in private homes for both international and domestic students – said they were getting 10 to 15 applications for some stays. Demand was expected to spike in May as the deadline approached for international students to return, he said.
Morgan said the situation was bleak in the private rental market, where he had been told of students pitching tents in lounge rooms or dividing rooms with partitions or curtains.
“The rooms are broken up in six-hour shifts with a bed in it, you write your name outside,” he said. “One kid was saying he was paying $100 a week but sleeping in a bathroom.”
When asked whether Monash University tutors would billet students, a spokesperson said the university wasn’t experiencing the issues reported by the student union.
The spokesperson said Monash Residential Services had accommodation available for international students in its halls of residences and had been through their waitlist and offered it to those who wanted it.
National Tertiary Education Union representative Ben Eltham said many academics, especially casual and “precarious” teachers, faced housing insecurity themselves.
“The onus should be on university vice-chancellors to ensure the fee-paying students they welcome to our campuses have a decent chance of finding safe and affordable housing.”
International student Xinyu Zhang, 18, said she had tried to apply for rental properties with a roommate while still in China.
She offered an extra $30 a week and agreed to pay half a year’s rent in advance and sign a one-year contract, but because she had no rental history and was still overseas, was unsuccessful from more than 40 applications.
“We finally found a house in Clayton because we saw a post from a Chinese person on a Chinese social media platform, otherwise we might not have had a place to live,” she said.
Xinyu Zhang said she had unsuccessfully tried to apply for rental properties while still in China.Credit: Penny Stephens
Zhang, who is studying a bachelor of commerce at the University of Melbourne, said it was difficult for international students to find a house that was safe and affordable.
West Justice senior lawyer Joseph Nunweek said more international students were being squeezed into “undesirable overcrowded quasi-rooming houses and sub-letting situations”, especially in the CBD.
Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare said being able to find safe and secure accommodation was central to a positive study experience.
“We know, however, that finding suitable accommodation is challenging for some international students,” he said.
Clare said the government was working closely with state and territory governments – which regulate accommodation arrangements – to support international students to secure safe accommodation.
A Victorian government spokesperson said international students had the same rights as any renter in Victoria and should seek guidance before signing documents and keep copies of them.
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