The Student Living Monitor has highlighted factors that seemingly impact well-being scores: Students with more control over where and how they live scored their well-being more highly than others. There is a stark differential in mental health (MHI-5) score between students who are living in their first-choice accommodation (MHI-5: 59) compared to those respondents who could not access their first choice accommodation (MHI-5: 52), and in particular, those who could not afford to access their first-choice accommodation (MHI-5: 47).
A smaller subset of results also revealed that respondents who ended up living at home when it was not their first choice correlated with low mental health scores (MHI-5: 45).
Students who did not get their first choice of accommodation report poorer mental health scores, and experience a less positive impact of accommodation upon their well-being.
Students who did not get their first choice and this resulted in a commute of note than 40 minues have more negative Well-being NPS scores (-48.0) than those that chose the commute (-7.3).
Respondents living in a rented house, flat or apartment were most likely to benefit from their house/flatmates’ presence (perhaps they were able to choose who they lived with) and to say that their accommodation had a beneficial impact on them. The same is true within the small subset of respondents who were living in their own home.
The average Well-being_NPS score for PBSA is 6.6, from 2,672 respondents. Students felt the most positive impact on their well-being from their student accommodation in Portugal (-1.3), Spain (1.7) and The Netherlands (2.2). Students in Iceland are most likely to live in university halls whilst in the majority of other countries, a student accommodation building owned by a private company is the most common form of accommodation among respondents. Note that these results reflect those from the latest accreditation wave from Investor in Students (IIS), which surveyed 15,013 students across 316 PBSA properties in the United Kingdom. IIS saw an average NPS of 2.1 for the statement I feel that my accommodation experience supported my mental health’.
More work could be done to understand student expectations of how they wish to live whilst studying, and being transparent about the availability of housing stock of different types. In some markets, this knowledge is likely to be much more developed than in others.
Allows students to feel that they are making proactive choices, putting them more in control of their situation
Understanding among stakeholders that there is a need in the sector to be able to offer more autonomy and choice to students. This could be an opportunity for booking platforms or similar, to provide a system where students can pick multiple housing options.
More student housing of the desired type, targeted to student needs, commuter patterns and amenities.
Building up housing choice. Giving more agency to students.
Building on the future of student living.
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