As I reach the final term of my time here at Cambridge, I cannot help but look back on my last three years of (very different) college accommodation. When I compare each year, it appears to paint a much broader picture. The lessons we can learn from the city’s town and gown housing reflect broader trends in the UK’s housing market, and it’s time we paid attention to them.

I arrived as a fresher to the wonders of a 19th-century college room (even if the gyp was more suited to a Victorian gentleman who barely ever cooks his own dinner). Fast forward to second year, and my ballot group and I were in the distant reaches of the city – by which I mean a 20-minute walk. We were pestered by moths, but there was a sense of camaraderie in the face of our insect enemies. Now, in third year, we’ve lucked out with a kitchen table and a view of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Regardless of the quirks of the Cambridge kitchen, we were extremely lucky. My sister’s first year rent at another university is set to be nearly double what I paid in first year. For those in her building, add in living costs and even the maximum maintenance grant disappears in the blink of an eye. In that respect, a lot of us (accounting for inter-college disparities) are profoundly fortunate to have spent three years with reduced rents and shorter contracts.

“Many colleges are also preparing us for the worst bits about UK housing”

However, many colleges are also preparing us for the worst bits about UK housing, and are going for a hands-on approach rather than a theoretical warning. Last year, five members of Trinity were left having to seek medical treatment after excessive levels of chlorine leaked into the water system. Only last term, Caius were threatened with legal action after a roof collapsed, an incident that followed weeks of insufficient communication and noise disruption. This is not to mention the nearly £3,000 rent disparity Varsity found between the most and least expensive average college rent.

Never again will I live in an Edwardian terraced house in the city centre without selling a part of my soul to a mortgage company. So, while I remain grateful for the temporary absence of a Faustian pact, I am still sceptical that Cambridge is doing all it can for the students who do not only study here, but live here. These examples of colleges play-acting as negligent and uncommunicative landlords only reinforce the country’s wider crisis, when they could be at the forefront of events to mitigate it.

Landlords across the country are artificially hiking rents, which are rising at a much higher rate than wages, creating the worst affordability in a decade. Here, I’ve heard how some colleges fight to stay in the same spot in the accommodation price rankings, and so increase rent regardless of whether they need to. They want to control exactly how affordable, or not, they seem to applicants, even if it harms existing students.

“Our three-year accommodation guarantees shouldn’t come at the cost of wider access to housing across the city”

When we look at the city beyond the colleges (and there isn’t much of it, which of course is a big part of the problem), 27% of property buyers paid more than the asking price, compared to 20% in London. House prices have risen by 10% in ten years. New University developments in Eddington with affordable housing for staff are a promising start to solving the problem, but there are still persistent obstacles to construction due to limited water supplies.

The problems still embedded in the gownie housing system, in spite of its significant protections for students, are replicated in the local and national housing market. In fact, the colleges’ own artificial rent market is not just reproduced in city housing, but is exacerbating problems thanks to its dominance of land and property ownership. Our three-year accommodation guarantees shouldn’t come at the cost of wider access to housing across the city. Nor should we become the recipients of college exploitation.

Like many landlords seem to forget, it is an immense privilege to have built up a property portfolio, to earn money from a possession rather than an occupation. And there aren’t many organisations who have hoarded as much property as Oxbridge colleges. They must remember that students, and the other residents of a city that they seem to control, deserve housing that is fair to everyone and does not just cater to a private market.

Wherever I live in the future, I can only hope to find a landlord that both protects the fairness of their rents whilst also trying to keep pests or mould at bay. This may be a naïve pipe dream. But, I know I will remember my three years of accommodation here in Cambridge and try to hold onto the idea that we deserve dignity and fairness in our housing, regardless of who our landlord is.

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