The Housing Crisis Is Leaving College Students Commuting For Hours And Living In Sheds

Financially, being a student has always been tricky. With a majority of the time being taken up with studying, it leaves limited time to work enough part time hours to cover your rent, basic supplies, and life in a new city. But this period of financial instability has also always been characterised by having fun, meeting new people, and for those who move away for college; the freedom of living away from home for the very first time.

The housing crisis, and rapidly-worsening cost of living crisis has made moving away for college for some students a living hell. It’s estimated that moving to Dublin for college will set students back approximately €19,527 per year. This, coupled with the limited housing supply, is forcing many students to stay at home.

Kyran, 24 from Hospital Village outside Limerick, told District that she commutes over 19 hours per week for college, and this isn’t a problem unique to Dublin. Kyran is now in her final year of college, after a 3 year break, due to the impossibility of working enough hours to survive and study. “Right now I commute three hours a day to Tipperary for college. I’m up at 6am and getting a bus to Limerick city, then a train to Limerick Junction before I get the train to Clonmel.  I have three days where my classes start at 9 or 10 and I’m always late.  I’ve missed three two hour dissertation class blocks because of the commute. It’s hard because I don’t make it home until late and I’m exhausted.  I know a lot of the giving out can be really Dublin centric but people who go to college in towns that aren’t as big are struggling a lot too. The rural commute is not for the weak but it’s my only option to live with my family if I want to get good grades.”

“Right now I commute three hours a day to Tipperary for college.”

The physical exhaustion of a long commute to college is one aspect, but the isolation this can cause, particularly in the country is another. Saoirse, 22, commutes to and from Limerick from a small town which takes around 1.5 hours each way. It’s far from ideal, but this was her only option after being unable to find somewhere to live in the city. “Knowing all my friends are in the city and I’m going to be stuck 1 hour 30 minutes away is such an isolating and daunting feeling. I feel so removed from my friends,” she tells District.

“I feel so removed from my friends.”

Others are doing what they can to find a place to sleep for the night. Mia was 18 when she moved to Dublin for her first year of college from Donegal. After being unable to find a room to rent, Mia ended up “living on my sister’s floor in a tiny single room for an entire college year. It was tough mentally not having my own space because I was living out of a suitcase.”

“I was living out of a suitcase.”

23 year old Michaela has was also unable to find somewhere she could afford to live, and is now living in a shed in the garden of her family home. In the three bedroom house, her two sisters share a room, her parents share a room, and her brother and step-brother share a room, so herself and her boyfriend (who faces similar overcrowding problems in his family home) decided to “build something of our own within a tight budget.” “We’ve been living in a garden shed for my whole undergraduate degree. Even with a decent income between use, we can’t secure anywhere. We’ve been looking for over two years.”

“We’ve been living in a garden shed for my whole undergraduate degree.”

Not only is Michaela tasked with living in a shed, but she also has to commute for college. “There’s no direct bus from Tallaght to Maynooth, so I take a bus, luas, and another bus every day.”

The mental load of some of these living situations, on top of the financial, social and academic burden from college is unimaginable difficult, and symptomatic of a wider government failure.