A week to go and still no room: time is running out for international students
In June, the UvA warned prospective international students not to come to Amsterdam if they don't have a place to live yet. Have prospective students heeded that call or are they coming anyway? ‘I can stay with a family member in the beginning, but after that, I don't know.’
Alejandro Rico (17) could also have simply studied business administration in Spain. Yet he chose the UvA because the Business Administration program here is ranked much higher than Spanish business administration programs. ‘Studying at the UvA was a dream of mine,’ he says.
In mid-June, he began his search for a room in Amsterdam. But he didn't have time for that - he was busy preparing and taking Spanish school exams. He had a budget of €500 to 600 a month, but that soon proved insufficient. ‘Then, in agreement with my parents, I increased the budget so that I at least had living space in September. I responded to everything in and around Amsterdam on Kamernet, but I was rejected for everything.’ Alejandro is now in one of the many groups on social media that bring together students without a permanent place to live or stay in Amsterdam.
International students
International students are especially affected. They often have no safety net in the Netherlands to fall back on if their search for a room comes to nothing. That's why the UvA called on prospective international students in June to reconsider their registration if they still don't have a place to live by mid-August. This is because the university can only provide housing for half of the international first-year students. Those who are not lucky in the lottery of student rooms will have to go out on their own to find a room or another place to stay.
Prospective student Eva Rosu (18, Politics, Psychology, Law & Economics) from Romania is one of those international students who was unlucky in the lottery: her name was not drawn and to date has been unable to find permanent housing.
‘I can stay with a relative at first, but after that I don't know,’ she says a week and a half before the start of the academic year. ‘It's pretty stressful. PPLE is a busy study program. I'm dreading having to search for housing and move at some point during my college year, when my focus should be on studying.’
The UvA is advising students like Alejandro and Eva to drop out of their studies, a spokesperson reveals. 'We can well imagine that it's disappointing when, as an international student, you have been preparing for your new study program in Amsterdam for months and then it can't go ahead because you can't find a room,’ she says. ‘We find that very annoying, too.’
The university warned all students who lost in the lottery not to come if they had not found housing by mid-August. ‘We don't say that without good reason. There are unfortunately not enough rooms for everyone. Coming on a spontaneous basis is not smart. Maybe you can sleep on someone's couch at first but we don't expect the situation in the housing market to improve soon. It is very stressful studying if you don't have your own place.’
Real estate agents
Like Eva, Italian Camilla Carioni (19) is dreading the hassle of moving. It is not the first time for her. Last year she started studying communication sciences at the UvA. She broke it off and decided to start European Studies instead. But the house she rented until recently was sold, so just before the start of her new studies, she is out on the street again.
Since many real estate agents don't want to rent to students, her parents flew to Amsterdam to help Camilla with her search. ‘My mother looked to see if she could rent or even buy something for me. But that didn't work out either.’ This week, however, the solution finally arrived. She can move into one of the many rooms she applied for. But this means that she can no longer live with her former roommate with whom she initially sought accommodation.
For Alejandro, that solution did not come. Although he didn't want to consider it before, he withdrew his registration with the UvA. He still had hope up until the last minute, so he enrolled at other universities. He is therefore forced to take a gap year. Studying at the UvA will remain a dream for him.
