Martha, 19, from Essex, was due to start her course at the University of Exeter this September. She couldn’t have predicted the chaos that was about to unfold.
She had originally planned to go to Leeds University, where she had a confirmed place, but switched to the University of Exeter in August through clearing. “Little did she know that she would have no guaranteed university accommodation,” explains Claire, her mother. Once she had accepted her offer, Martha was advised by the university to either seek out private accommodation or defer her place for another year. She had already taken a gap year after school, so deferring wasn’t an option.
The mother and daughter promptly boarded a train on 1 September to Exeter with the intention of finding a rental. In the end, and without any help from the university, their persistence paid off. “We booked two different Airbnb for two weeks before eventually securing accommodation in a second-year house share on Facebook,” says Claire. “This process was solely resolved by two 19-year-olds.”
There was no help from the overwhelmed university accommodation office. “When you call up, they don’t tell you where you are on the waiting list or even ask for your name or student ID number,” says Martha. During their hunt for housing, one private rental manager told Claire there were 50 students on the waiting list for their property.
This housing crisis comes as 262,000 students were accepted into university this year – a record-breaking number, with Russell Group universities seeing the biggest increase in acceptances. And it’s not just Exeter that is struggling with increased demand. In August, the University of Bristol Student Union referred its incoming first years to the homelessness charity Shelter. “Please find the link for emergency housing help with Shelter,” the email wrote.
The University of Bristol has increased its student headcount by more than a third in the last decade – from 20,010 in 2014-15 to 31,132 in 2024-25. An Exeter City Council report in 2024 showed that the number of students attending the university had increased by 4,428 since 2018. “We have seen exceptionally strong demand from students wishing to study at Exeter this year, alongside very high demand for accommodation across the city,” a spokesperson from the university told The i Paper.
Looking back, Martha and Claire wish they had acted sooner. “We never thought it would end up like this,” says Claire. “We assumed we would find accommodation.”
Advice for next year’s cohort:
Search for accommodation before you even apply. That way you’ll have an idea of where you’d like to live before the housing application deadline.
Get your application in early. When you’ve chosen the kind of accommodation you want, it’s usually first-come, first-served, so it’s worth getting your application in as soon as you’re able.
Clearing runs from July to October. But it will be busiest for housing applications after A Level results day.
For those in Clearing, always confirm accommodation before accepting your place. The Complete University Guide recommends finding out if the university has secure accommodation for students entering through Clearing. Speak to the university on the phone or you can also check this on the university’s website or Clearing pages.
Always create a shortlist. Create a shortlist of your preferred types of accommodation and area you’d like to live. This helps you be flexible without ending up somewhere you hate.
Sarah*, 18, from Chelmsford, was excited to study geography at university in September, but she has been forced to take a gap year thanks to the accommodation shortages. “It was never part of the plan,” she says.
Sarah had planned to attend Cambridge University but failed to meet the grades. She was swiftly accepted into Exeter, her insurance choice, but she quickly learned that students are only ever guaranteed accommodation by their first choice of university. “Not only was she dealing with the devastation of not going to Cambridge but then came the accommodation disaster,” says Kay, her mother. “All Sarah’s plans had fallen through. Cambridge was only down the road [from us], and easier to organise with allocated halls of residence.”
It didn’t even cross Kay’s mind that her daughter wouldn’t get accommodation at her insurance choice of Exeter. “We can’t be alone in this situation, and they shouldn’t be allowed to offer a place if they can’t provide accommodation,” she says. The university was of no help. “The Exeter accommodation team washed their hands of us and were of no help on the phone whatsoever. They just said you will have to defer. There was no waiting list, and they didn’t even say, ‘Try this landlord or agency.’ A Facebook group would have been more helpful [when we first spoke in August]. Back when there might have been a chance of sorting accommodation.”
Sarah feels betrayed. “If I had known, I would never in a million years have chosen Exeter as my insurance offer,” she says. “I was really upset to have been told flippantly to defer for another year of my life. It was so upsetting and disheartening – and all of this was down to a lack of accommodation.”
Kay tried her best to find a private rental for Sarah. “Accommodation and places were going on the website in real time as we were speaking on the phone [with the university].” The prices weren’t cheap – a studio was £340 per week for 51 weeks of the year. Sarah’s friend, who put Exeter as a first choice, also struggled to find housing. They eventually found off-campus accommodation. “It’s not near the union or library, and she has to take a 20-minute bus to campus back and forth each day.”
Sarah says she didn’t want to live in a studio on her own and would have been lonely. “How was I meant to make any friends without a shared kitchen or bathroom?” she says. “Prices were going up every day. Exeter is not a cheap place to live and not many families can afford these crazy hiked-up prices.” Sarah has since made the difficult decision to defer.
Carlos*, a father of three and based in Spain, started looking for accommodation for his son at the end of August, but has still not found a solution. They are becoming desperate. “Everything was fully booked; we trawled through Facebook pages trying to get a room – we have done everything. We have contacted 30 agents to see if they were interested in helping us, but no one wants to deal with first-year students even though we had a decent budget.” Carlos is now looking on SpareRoom, but rooms are typically 45 minutes away from the campus in places like Exmouth. Carlos fears that this isolation and long commute will make life difficult for his son, who is, after all, only 18.
“I think the university’s behaviour is absolutely disgraceful and I don’t think they should be allowed to get away with it and potentially do exactly the same thing to next year’s cohort, too,” says Anna, the mother of an incoming student from Bury St Edmunds. “I think every young person who considers applying to Exeter next year should be fully aware of the risk they’re taking.
“For me, what is absolutely unforgivable is the university’s lack of transparency. Had they been honest about the accommodation shortage on results day, my daughter would’ve applied to York (a university from which she had received an offer previously) through Clearing. Instead, they waited until 3pm on 17 August to alert us to the fact that there might be a problem securing accommodation, and by then all her Clearing options were long gone. To me, it feels like a total stitch-up and a cynical ploy by the university to trap people for next year ahead of the game.”
Isaac, 19, from Essex, isn’t surprised by this chaos. He joined Exeter University last year when it was also in an accommodation crisis. “I had my course changed on results day which caused an administrative error resulting in my accommodation application for the year being cancelled,” he says. “There was no notification of the change in course affecting my accommodation application, so we were in the dark about needing to reapply for accommodation for a whole week. Once we found this out, we were faced with two options: find a contract in private accommodation or wait for the university to sort out my accommodation.” In the end, Isaac managed to secure a studio in university accommodation for £12,000 for a year, way above the usual price for student halls which sits around £8,000.
A University of Exeter spokesperson said: “We are meeting our accommodation commitments to eligible students covered by the University’s Accommodation Guarantee. However, demand this year means that we are unfortunately unable to offer university accommodation to some students who are not covered by the guarantee.
“The University of Exeter guarantees an offer of university-allocated accommodation to eligible first-year students who submit their application by 31 July.
“Students were notified as early as possible to explore private accommodation options, and they also have the option to defer their studies to the next academic year.”
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