Flying cheaper than renting a room for Canadian student

The housing shortage is high in some Canadian cities. It is so expensive to live in Vancouver that one student has come up with a cheaper solution: he lives 700 kilometres away and takes the plane.

A student room in Vancouver – Canada’s most expensive city – costs an average of 2,100 Canadian dollars a month, reports CTV News. That is more than 1,400 euros. Rooms are hard to find and rents have risen sharply.

For student Tim Chen, it appears to be cheaper to live in Calgary, where he is from. He takes the plane twice a week to go to his university. That costs only $1,200 a month, just over 800 euros.

Intake down

Partly because of the overheated housing market, the Canadian government wants to admit fewer international students, as was announced in January. The intake will go down by 35 per cent next year, and even more in some provinces.

In the Netherlands, too, the tight housing market is one of the reasons for resistance to internationalisation in higher education. Rents have risen sharply, in Delft with more than 14 percent. (HOP, BB)

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