It really were better in the old days

[flarewearer]

[img]http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/x/hlols.png[/img]

So I was bored and someone linked me to old hall prices from the waybackmachine. I adjusted these lines for inflation, so this figure reflect purely the increase in price of accommodation.

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[MacMan]

That is brilliant, well done. I think this will have to be publicised more than just on The Sinner, this is the first time anyone has presented this data in such a simple format.

[James Shield]

Could you please send me the original Excel file to jws22? Your graph is a brilliantly clear illustration of residence fees, and I'd be interested in making the most of it. I believe I have a meeting scheduled after the break with Isobel Clifford and possibly Roger Smith, among others, though I'm not entirely sure of the details yet - perhaps the graph could be used as an illustrative tool in this meeting.

The majority of the increase shown above is due to the staggered 40% rise in fees which ended last year. The Students' Association secured an agreement last year for fees not to be increased again in real terms, so this should mean that the graph lines ought to run straight in future. Still, this does not detract from the fact that our residence fees are significantly higher than those of most other universities (including LSE, if I'm not mistaken), and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that we should now do all we can to try to negotiate fees downwards.

To this end, I believe we've just obtained (or should shortly be receiving) a full breakdown of hall fees. From my meeting yesterday afternoon with members of the Accommodation Committee, it's my understanding that it has taken us some time to get the University to provide this to us, and we'll now be examining closely any potential areas of waste or arbitrary charges.


James Shield
SRC Accommodation Officer

[Paranoid]

FIVE GRAND for JBH Annexe? Bloody hell, I remember back in the day when I was paying about the 3k mark and thought THAT was high!

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..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[flarewearer]

Quoting James Shield from 20:50, 24th Mar 2007

Could you please send me the original Excel file to jws22?

Done, lucky I read this before I emptied the recycle bin.

The figures are based on the official numbers from resbus; the slight decreases in the New/DRA line are the result of this line using an average of single and twin rooms, the numbers for twin rooms werent available in 1998, and their addition in 1999 drags the line down. Nothing actually got cheaper.

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[James Shield]

Quoting flarewearer from 21:02, 24th Mar 2007
the slight decreases in the New/DRA line are the result of this line using an average of single and twin rooms, the numbers for twin rooms werent available in 1998, and their addition in 1999 drags the line down. Nothing actually got cheaper.

Aha. I was wondering why all of these figures were below the £5000 line, but that explains it. Catered places in New Hall (and others) are going to be around £5400 next academic year, so I might make some adjustments to emphasise this and ignore twin rooms in primarily single-room residences like DRA.

[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Fife/Albany Park can't even compete with the other residences in terms of fee hikes! Dear me, they really are shit. But on a serious note, I imagine the unversity could easily site the fact that these residences remain available at the sub £1500 mark to prove that it still provides affordable accomodation for those who don't have deep enough pockets for the majority of residences.

I assume your aim is to get the university to drive prices down, but I'm wondering how much you can really get knocked off? Not to criticise it as these prices are really shocking, but if the university has just raised prices - and also agreed to a staggered raise and no more increases - then lowering the prices would surely represent a very sharp U-turn, which seems to me unlikely. Also, I seem to remember some commitment to maintaining some halls as low-cost in the accomodation plan, but then my memory is a bit fuzzy (and Saint reporting is never all that)

Scrutinising the hall finances for waste etc is an excellent idea, and I assume you've gone through all the general approaches like data on the economic class of students and graduate debt. I think another thing worth thinking about is the general level of repair of the halls - I've heard all kinds of anecdotes about DRA flats falling to bits, Melville mould, etc - and asking if we really do get value for money out of the fees we pay. Although I suppose there are certain dangers in implying that the amount we pay should be linked to the place's quality if we're also lobbying for a reduction in fee levels...

Oh, and as a final thought - does the university provide any bursaries specifically for accomodation?

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Mmmmmmm, cake.
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102114

[MacMan]

In reference to hall fees, I have heard that the significant rise in fees from last year has given some catered halls a surplus of funding. Most of the older halls have been burning this up in some form or another, and I have certainly noticed that the heating and food in my hall has improved alot over last year. That is of course a very positive thing, but I am sure that with more effeciency the halls can be run for far less than they cost right now (for example, employing internal labour for repairs rather than contracting external companies). To explain this a little let me use an example.

Recently there was damage done to a kitchen on my floor, which resulted in a hole in the wall. The hole had to be patched and a joiner was contracted to cover it. He fixed a 1.5 x 1.5 foot bit of new plasterboard to the wall with crosshead screws, which took him approximately one hour. The bill came in and it cost the hall £192!!! This job could easily have been done by a University janitor as part of running repairs, and cost the hall far, far less. There seems to be some ethic in redisdential management that thinks that throwing money at things will make problems go away, which is why halls are costing so much. With a bit of skill in terms of management and also practical implementation (ie. repairs and improvements), halls could be run much more efficiently and the advantages in terms of rent price and increase of quality would certainly be noticeable.

[KateBush]

These prices are atrocious! £5400 for a hall you only live in for 30 weeks? You could be paying a bloody mortgage for that amount of money- you might as well buy a house up there. Jeez, if I was 18 now, instead of 25, there's no way I'd be able to come to St Andrews and do my degree

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The only way to avoid trouble is to BE trouble

[flarewearer]

Quoting Dave the Explosive Newt from 23:36, 24th Mar 2007
Fife/Albany Park can't even compete with the other residences in terms of fee hikes! Dear me, they really are shit. But on a serious note, I imagine the unversity could easily site the fact that these residences remain available at the sub £1500 mark to prove that it still provides affordable accomodation for those who don't have deep enough pockets for the majority of residences.

The real cost is just shy of £2000, like I said, I've adjusted these figures to take out inflation. If you consider that there's 560-odd rooms in Fife and Albany park, they bring in just over £1 million a year alone, and that's meant to be the "cheap" accomodation. These are old, old developments, which surely have paid for their construction many many times over. If you look at Fife and Albany park and how they are run - on a shoestring made from carbon nanotubules - then the profit margin for the university must be enormous.

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[flarewearer]

I added another column to my spreadsheet, with total numbers of rooms in each hall (for the halls I could find; couldn't get postgraduate hall figures) and I got this;

* There are 2810 rooms for uundergraduates in University halls.

* Fees totalled up for all rooms in these halls gives a gross income of £11,144,995 per annum (give or take a few tens of thousands for the number of rooms being slightly off, you never can trust university figures)

* The average room costs £3,966 in fees per annum.

* In 2000, the average room (using the same halls, with DRA replaced by the old DRH) costs £1970 in fees.

* Factoring for inflation, the average student residence fee for 2007/8 academic year is now 146% of that in 2000.

* Residence fees have increased by 8% above inflation for the nine years 1998-2007.


[hr]

[James Shield]

Quoting Dave the Explosive Newt from 23:36, 24th Mar 2007
I assume your aim is to get the university to drive prices down, but I'm wondering how much you can really get knocked off?

You're right, and this is the reason I didn't run my election campaign on "I'll lower your rent" type stuff. To be honest, it's a long shot. I don't know what our chances are of getting a reduction in fees - after all, it's taken us ages just to get a breakdown of what these fees are paying for - but I certainly think it's worthwhile having a go.

Scrutinising the hall finances for waste etc is an excellent idea, and I assume you've gone through all the general approaches like data on the economic class of students and graduate debt.

I'm afraid I haven't, but I certainly intend to do so - technically, I haven't even started as Accommodation Officer just yet, and I've not yet received the breakdown of fees despite a promise that we would receive it this week. Having said that, it may well be on its way via Ben or Laura.

Oh, and as a final thought - does the university provide any bursaries specifically for accomodation?

As far as I know (this is just off the top of my head) bursaries are provided to assist with financing a student's studies in St Andrews and all associated costs. Scottish students have their fees paid by the Scottish Executive yet they're still eligible for bursaries, so I presume that the bursaries are meant to go towards accommodation/food/travel and so on. I could be wrong though.

[exnihilo]

£5,400? Cripes. In 1993-4, when it opened, the full grant was £2,200 and there was a good few hundred left over (after paying for a catered, single room) for beer money. Nothing else seems to have shot up at quite the same sort of rate - and, oddly, at the time there was an outcry that all the rents had gone up, ostensibly to pay for New Hall. Ha.

[James Shield]

Quoting flarewearer from 00:19, 25th Mar 2007
I added another column to my spreadsheet, with total numbers of rooms in each hall (for the halls I could find; couldn't get postgraduate hall figures) and I got this;

* There are 2810 rooms for uundergraduates in University halls.

* Fees totalled up for all rooms in these halls gives a gross income of £11,144,995 per annum (give or take a few tens of thousands for the number of rooms being slightly off, you never can trust university figures)

* The average room costs £3,966 in fees per annum.

* In 2000, the average room (using the same halls, with DRA replaced by the old DRH) costs £1970 in fees.

Fantastic, thanks a lot for your number crunching.

[James Shield]

Flarewearer: thanks a lot for your number crunching!

Quoting katebush from 23:49, 24th Mar 2007
These prices are atrocious! £5400 for a hall you only live in for 30 weeks? You could be paying a bloody mortgage for that amount of money- you might as well buy a house up there. Jeez, if I was 18 now, instead of 25, there's no way I'd be able to come to St Andrews and do my degree

This is our primary argument for lower fees. St Andrews is already the least inclusive university in Scotland.

I assume that the counter argument will be that bursaries are provided for students from poorer backgrounds, but we need to look at whether these bursaries are sufficient to balance against high residence fees and whether they have been or ought to be adjusted in line with recent rent rises.

Whatever the case, I don't believe bursaries are the solution. You don't have to be from a poor background to find these fees to be ridiculous, and I've no doubt that there are many students from families with an average income for whom residence fees are a massive financial burden.

With regard to suggestions that we may not be able to reduce fees, I'm afraid this may be true - though that will not stop us from doing what we can. Where a difference can be made is in the redevelopment of Fife Park. But, as Kirsty Wark might say, more on that story later...

Quoting MacMan from 23:38, 24th Mar 2007
There seems to be some ethic in redisdential management that thinks that throwing money at things will make problems go away, which is why halls are costing so much. With a bit of skill in terms of management and also practical implementation (ie. repairs and improvements), halls could be run much more efficiently and the advantages in terms of rent price and increase of quality would certainly be noticeable.

Thank you for telling me this. Certainly, money spent on external contractors is something I'll look at, providing it's not just filed away under "miscellaneous" expenditure.

It's impossible to prove, based purely on the fees breakdown, whether money is spent efficiently or not. Perhaps we could push for a commitment to use in-house staff whenever possible, or something like that. I'll keep you posted.

[flarewearer]

I would wager that the University has cut costs over the last few years whilst simultaneously increasing fees above inflation, to derive a higher profit. For instance, Albany Park used to have its own on-site manager, whereas now it is run from arms-length by DRA - that's just one example off the top of my head. I'm sure if you could get your hands on the figures (although I'm not sure how easy that would be), you could prove this.

The move to self-catered halls (where there are far less staff to employ and no loss-making catering facilities to be run) which can be rented out as "luxury accommodation" over non-teaching time is indicative of this situation that accommodation is now treated as a source of revenue and not a social service.

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[James Shield]

By the way, can I ask where you found the data for the number of rooms in halls? I'm interested in working out what proportion of university accommodation is low cost.

[flarewearer]

Quoting James Shield from 02:49, 25th Mar 2007
By the way, can I ask where you found the data for the number of rooms in halls? I'm interested in working out what proportion of university accommodation is low cost.

http://web.archive.org/web/199902240127 ... s_Fee.html

I had to do a little bit of magic to work out how many people are in DRA. I also know that a proportion of the single rooms in these figures are probably now doubled up, and a number of rooms previously reserved as guest / warden / RA accommodation are now used as study bedrooms, so it's not 100% accurate, if you were to take this to the University you might want to divine the correct numbers.

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[Lid]

Mr Accommodation Officer (Elect.),

I think LSE at the moment (or at least in the past few years) (and some of Imperial's) halls happen to be more expensive than St Andrews' halls, the discrepency arises in the fact that St Andrews does not receive the London student loan add-on (for obvious geographical reasons), which lowers the affordability quoted by many of the red-tops.

It's most re-assuring to see the figures level off, and in fact the lowest-quartile properties fall, I hope this is something you'll be lobbying to see happen consistently

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Mathematical Anti Telharsic Harfatum Septomin

[James Shield]

Quoting flarewearer from 02:58, 25th Mar 2007
I had to do a little bit of magic to work out how many people are in DRA.

There are something like 1,000 people in DRA, maybe 900-and-something.

Those might be rough figures, but they're still useful. Combined, there are 564 rooms in Albany and Fife Parks, and I doubt that's changed much. If roughly 3,000 people are in halls, then less than one in five are in what we would deem to be affordable accommodation. It also seems unacceptable that of a student population of roughly 7,000, the University provides cheap housing for fewer than 1 in 10.