There once was a time when student accommodation meant mouldy walls, a broken toaster and a leaking shower, a time when students had to wear multiple jumpers in the winter to keep warm.

Parents might have been appalled, but the dingy student grotto used to be a rite of passage: a rejection of home and clean sheets and spotless ovens. Not any more. The launch this month of several high-profile luxury student studios, with wi-fi, a flat-screen TV and even a dishwasher is part of a new trend in university living: accommodation for the posh student.

Whereas private accommodation providers made up about 2 per cent of the full-time student accommodation market a decade ago, today the figure is closer to 10 per cent. Unite, the largest provider in the UK, has been opening an average of 13 student residences a year for the past seven years has and created 2,856 beds this year alone.

Rents with Unite range from £79 a week in Huddersfield to £513 a week in Central London. While the high-end flats are cleverly designed, and often include extras such as a fortnightly visit from a cleaner, the annual cost can reach £26,000.

“Maybe it’s something to do with the PlayStation generation. Shared bathrooms is an anathema to today’s students,” says Philip Hillman, a partner at property consultants King Sturge and specialist in the student accommodation market. “When I was a student we didn’t think twice about mice in the kitchen or sharing a bathroom. But things have changed.”

Private providers tend to offer high-quality studio flats and hassle-free living as the price includes all bills. Hillman notes that companies have been taking advantage of a niche in the university market for better accommodation, particularly at a time when increased student numbers have not been met by a substantial rise in university-owned student accommodation.

Lowri Wynn Morgan, 23, paid £65 a week for a shared student flat during her undergraduate degree, but wanted something different when she moved to London to take the bar vocational course at City University; “I lived in basic student accommodation when I was at Aberystwyth, but I feel that at 23 I have gone through the halls stage and need my own place.”

Not knowing anyone in the capital, she wanted to stay near the university, but not surrounded by the booze-filled buzz of a freshers’ hall. Although she pays £363 a week for a studio flat in Unite’s Kirby Street residence in Farringdon, London EC1 — considerably more than the average student rent of about £63 a week — she says it is worth it. “We are paying so much anyway for the fees that the price is not really an issue. This year I really need to knuckle down and work hard, so it’s better that I can just shut the door and have my own space.” She says that a number of her friends are still looking for accommodation, even though the academic year has started in many universities.

Source: Times Online
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/rental_market/article6846250.ece