‘Students happier with roommates’

It is better for students to live in a room with a shared kitchen and shower than in a self-contained studio, believe the social student housing providers, united in Kences. That would reduce loneliness and stress. Yet more and more studios are being built because they are much more lucrative for landlords thanks to the rent allowance. By also entitling students in shared housing to financial compensation, it would become more attractive to build non-self-contained rooms, according to Kences.

According to Kences, it is not good that the share of shared room dwellers decreased from 58 to 52 per cent over the past eight years, while the share of students with stand-alone studios increased from 12 to 23 per cent.

Students in shared accommodation are in fact considerably happier, Kences argues based on a further analysis of the most recently published National Student Housing Monitor. In it, 75 per cent of the room dwellers surveyed said they had a good relationship with their housemates. Among students in a studio – that is, without roommates – only 42 per cent said that about their neighbours. They are more likely to be socially isolated, Kences director Jolan de Bie stressed earlier (HOP, HC).