Students reeling from steep price hike in Curtin University accommodation amid cost of living crisis

students reeling from steep price hike in curtin university accommodation amid cost of living crisis

Mansi Matoo stands in her small $245 per week on-campus room at Curtin University (ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch)

Students at Perth’s Curtin University are reeling from steep rent increases of up to $100 a week for on-campus rooms, pushing them to the financial brink and adding to existing cost-of-living pressures.

Students living at WA’s biggest university, most of whom are international or from regional and rural areas, have been forced to cut spending on food and other essentials or leave altogether to try their luck in Perth’s extremely tight rental market.

Curtin University Guild president Jasmyne Tweed said the rent hikes were unjustified and unaffordable.

“Especially during the cost-of-living crisis, you know, an extra $100 a week is the difference between groceries, getting petrol in your car,” Ms Tweed said.

COVID-19 discounts end

Curtin University acknowledged the financial strain caused by cost-of-living increases and pointed out the average rent increase across all room types was $36 per week.

It said the rises were mainly due to inflation and the end of significant COVID-19 discounts.

But students still need to find the extra money.

Those who pick up extra hours at work to help make ends meet say their Commonwealth Youth Allowance is then reduced, leaving them not much better off.

For Curtin’s international students, who make up 54 per cent of on-campus residents, their work opportunities are limited by their visa to 24 hours a week.

Rent increase ‘crazy’

Mansi Matoo, a masters student from New Delhi in India, lives in a room at one of the Kurrajong Village eight-bedroom apartments, where she said her weekly rent had gone up from $145 last year to $235 this year.

“This is my room, as you can see it’s not that big,” she said.

The room measures around 2.5 metres by 3.5 metres, which means clothes need to be stored in a suitcase under the bed.

Ms Matoo shares a kitchen and two bathrooms with the other seven students. She said the rent hike would have been easier to take if amenities had been improved but they had not,  with a lack of air conditioning making it stiflingly hot during Perth’s summer heatwaves.

“It is a crazy increase in rent,” Ms Matoo said.

“One hundred dollars is a lot for a student coming from an international crowd and where you don’t even earn that much. You’re a casual employee.”

Little choice

Jess Rolland, an18-year-old first year speech pathology student who moved from Albany to Perth, expected to pay almost $180 a week for her room on campus but found it had gone up to $269.

Even then, she wasn’t impressed with what she found.

“Not only have you got the rent prices, you’ve got the one off prices for the cleaning and I had to do a lot of cleaning — there was mould in one of the fridges,” Ms Rolland said.

Looking for a private rental was not an option, with less than one per cent rental vacancy rates in the metropolitan area.

“There’s no-one else I could stay with, and the rent market’s crazy, so I wouldn’t bother try looking,” she said.

Other rooms, such as those in the six-bedroom Erica Underwood apartments have gone up by almost $100 to $260 per week as well.

But according to the university, some rooms have only had a very small increase in rent of $7 a week, while the biggest increase was $90.

It said the average increase in student campus rent from 2023 to 2024 was 11.3 per cent, which was below the Perth metropolitan area median rise.

Figures from Domain released in January showed house rents in Perth had grown 17 per cent, and units had risen by 18 per cent in the past year.

Accommodation ‘good value for money’

In 2022, the university introduced heavy discounts as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but these were scaled back in 2023.

“We acknowledge that students who have lived on campus for several years have seen rate increases, but those students may have previously enjoyed significant discounts,” the university said in a statement, adding it was committed to helping students in need.

It has also introduced a “needs-based accommodation equity bursary” instead of the universal COVID discount, providing financial support of up to $3,000 per year for 250 students experiencing hardship.

“When compared to private rental accommodation, Curtin believes our on-campus accommodation represents good value for money,” the university said.

Ms Tweed noted the maximum $3,000 bursary did not cover the average increase to the price of accommodation.

“I think what’s not being taken into account is post-COVID we’ve entered a cost-of-living crisis and a lot of students are struggling far greater than what they did before COVID,” she said.

“With the price of fuel and groceries going up, being far higher than it was before COVID, you can’t really compare the times pre-COVID to now.”

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