Residence Fee RIse (HUGE!!)

[fluKe]

I just got my contract for University Hall for next session (2003/4) and the residence fees have risen by approx £400. That's about 16% (about 10.5 times inflation).

A rise of 400 fucking pounds, and there are to be no improvements of service, nothing new - I've lived here for two years now and nothing new has been added, infact things like showers have gone un-repaired for years and they feel justified in raising the rent by £400. I'll barely be able to afford to live next year.

After oversubscription to halls and now putting the rent up by around 16% I think it's time somebody went and shot the fucking idiots in charge of the whole thing.

Talk about the university trying to force out people from poorer backgrounds it fucking stinks.

[McK]

Hear hear! But who will slay that old dragon Miss Clifford and her bunch of haggard, bitter cohorts? I say we take them on and burn down College Gate and the buildings on North Street! Who's with me?...


Hello...?

[rubbermuffin]

I think Melville has gone up by about 300 nose...

[hr]'I said I'd enjoyed talking to them a lot, too. I meant it, too. I'd have enjoyed it even more though, I think, if I hadn't been sort of afraid, the whole time I was talking to them, that they'd all of a sudden try to find out if I was a Catholic.'

[Cain]

McIntosh is up by a shade over 10%, from 2452 to 2717.

i'll be in the same room next year, so i'll be able to see EXACTLY where my money goes.

i expect to see me with no renovations, the same crap bed and peeling paint, and Isobel Clifford with a lot of Bling Bling next year.

[hr]
whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance

[General Porkov]

I think there is one explanation of where some of the £300 to £400 rise in rent is going. There's supposed to be that planned incorporation of Residence network connection and Telephone account line rental into the accommodation fees. That's supposed to be £90.
As for the rest, it may be standard money-making or it may be due to that evil HMO (multiple occupancy laws).
Thank goodness I'm not living in catered halls this session.
(I used to stay in Deans Court and I baulked at having one rent rise from £3,725 in 2000/1 to £4,062 in 2001/2. Luckily I got out before they raised it to £4,300 or more in 2002/3). It does kind of suck, doesn't it

[ever_nocturnal]

.

[Alyson Macdonald]

Other than the technology charge, it's pretty much standard money making. Not all of the contracts are out, but some residences are expected to have a drop in amenities next year.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Why the fuck do we have to pay for the privelege of using phones IF WE AREN'T GOING TO USE THEM. If that's one of the reasons why the rent has gone up, all I have to say is what a fucking joke.

[Cain]

[s]Prophet Tenebrae wrote on 17:24, 1st May 2003:
Why the fuck do we have to pay for the privelege of using phones IF WE AREN'T GOING TO USE THEM. If that's one of the reasons why the rent has gone up, all I have to say is what a fucking joke.


Why is the rent going up if the phone bills are being added on?

you have to pay +40 for your phone (50 for resnet + phone = 90) so how can phones be a reason for me being charged an extra 260?

I had better
a) get free calls or
b) get to keep some of this furniture


[hr]
I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is Invading Russia in the Winter

[John Stewart]

[s]Alyson Macdonald
Other than the technology charge, it's pretty much standard money making. Not all of the contracts are out, but some residences are expected to have a drop in amenities next year.


So what you're saying is that we're paying fuckloads more for even shittier services?

Ever get the feeling that you're a bit of a university cash cow???

[Scarlet]

I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I went to see Isobel Clifford yesterday to tell her how upset I am. Basically there's nothing that can be done as the university court has already given this the go-ahead and apparently we were represented on this court, though who exactly said yes to the enforced technology bill is beyond me, they certainly don't represent me. I guess some of the 300 extra is due to an expected inflation, then 90 to the technology, however right or wrong that is, but what about the rest? Ms Clifford was a bit more cagey about this point, apparently it takes a lot to maintain these buildings, but why all of a sudden this year it takes more is anyone's guess.

I guess I'm just so angry cos I feel messed around by the uni. We were not given an indication that fees were going to rise by this much and by the time we know it's really too late to get a cheap flat sorted. No one in their right mind would say yes to buying a car and find out the price later but we have been forced into this situation by the accommodation services.

I'm writing to the vice principal about it, it may not do a fat lot of good but I don't want people to think they can walk all over me like this.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

My point exactly - if anything it seems that we're paying more to get LESS! I fully appreciate that I'm not someone who is going to be marginalised by this but never the less it strikes me as very unacceptable that the univeristy should get away with this.

Is the SRC totally powerless to stop these ridiculous rises?

[Alyson Macdonald]

Living in Gatty I know exactly how you feel. The reason that I stood for the post of SRC Accommodation Officer was because I had been messed around so much myself in the past and wanted to stand up for others in the same situation.

As rough figures have been agreed for rent increases for the next few years, it will take a lot to stop them from going ahead, not least because even though students are represented on the University Court, the majority of it is made up of members of staff. And we don't have an option on paying the technology charge because it will be included in the residence fees. Although some of the older residences need a lot of money to maintain, the residence system makes an overall profit, and the only argument we have against this is the moral one, which the university refuse to listen to because it is their right to charge what they like for residences. What is perhaps a more valid argument is that it isn't right for the university to profit from badly maintained properties with few amenities, which is what I am trying to argue at the moment.

By all means write to the Vice-Principal or any other members of the university hierarchy to let them know the strength of feeling among the students, but as Mr Work is one of the strongest supporters of the rent increases you're unlikely to get a favourable response.

[Edited to remove unnecessarily quoted text]

[Alex Rennie]

Mr Alistair Work made it very clear at the last accomodation forum that he sees students as a potential market, and does not concern himself with the moral issues (his words, not mine) About 75% of people there kicked up a storm when the £90 charge was announced, and still they went ahead with it. The rent increases had already been arranged years ago, when a president said nothing when he sat on the court and the above inflation rent rises were announced.

[RichZ]

Does anyone have the price list from last year to compare price increases?

If any one does and feels very bored they could work out extra profit the university will be making from all this extortion! I would do it but don't have the lists. But if it's what say £300 extra on average with about 3000 places in hall? That makes £900,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEARLY ONE MILLION POUNDS EXTRA - for fucks sake you could build another hall for that price surely!!!!! What ARE they playing at?!?!?!?


(I felt all the !'s are important in this case)

[Cola Cube]

Can the University really do whatever the hell it wants to without having to answer to anyone?

Surely somebody somewhere has jurisdiction over them, a government body perhaps? It seems ridiculous that they can just choose to increase rent for no other reason than to make unnecessary profit.

It is expensive enough trying to live in this town and it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay in the halls that we want to stay in because a) there are far too many new students to fit us all in, and b) because they are pricing a lot of us out of the market.

I didn't think twice about choosing this University to study at but I would advise anyone thinking about coming here now to think hard about whether they are rich enough to afford it.

I am deeply ashamed of the accommodation people and the Vice Principal and I cannot understand why these people who should be helping us are behaving so selfishly and so greedily.

[Cain]

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/services/re ... fees.shtml

Last year, if every place was filled, the university made £3,649,991.23 from halls of residences.

with the increases in Mcintosh single rooms, they're going to make an extra £26,490.00 out of the single rooms. i don't know what the deal is with the single rooms.

they can't do that much work on the hall. More to the point, they won't. My room was a dump when i moved in this year, and i expect it to be the same next year.

Doing some crude guesswork and taking the increase in rates for McIntosh top be THE increase for everything, then the uni would make £4,044,299.24, which is an increase of £394,308.01.

there are rooms for 1728 people in the uni accommodation service. the university is going to be making an extra £228/student, on average. take off the resnet/restel fees and that's £138/student on average. minus the Restel, which doesn't need to A) be there and B) be so high, the uni is making £238,788 off each student.

Remember, these are all just numbers, and many of them are meaningless. It's the result of a very sleepy me working about with Excel and making some pretty brave assumptions based on some minimal data.

At 31 weeks, McIntosh is going to go from £79.10 to £87.65

[Prophet Tenebrae]

So, someone explain to me why we haven't overthrown our evil overlords? This strikes me as a situation where the university is exploiting students - are we so powerless as to be unable to stop it?

[Pussycat]

....yes.

[surfingsimon]

Cain wrote
It's the result of a very sleepy me working about with Excel and making some pretty brave assumptions based on some minimal data.

Al, you really should just have gone to bed rather than work all that out.

still, its rather enligntening reading if youre assumptions are close on target.