International Students Grapple with Australia’s Escalating Housing Crisis

As Australia faces a mounting housing crisis, international students find themselves in the thick of it, battling high rental prices and scarce accommodation options. Linh Le, in an eye-opening piece for VnExpress International, highlights the plight of Nguyen Bao My, a Vietnamese student at Monash University. My’s struggle to find affordable housing in Melbourne underscores a broader issue that many foreign students confront upon arriving in Australia.

The heart of the matter lies in the astonishing increase in rental prices across the country. PropTrack’s data, as reported by The Guardian, shows an 11.5% increase in national rental prices over the past year, with the average rents in state capital cities soaring even higher to $600 a week. This spike is notably acute in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. The Sydney Morning Herald adds another layer to this narrative, pointing out that rents for small, purpose-built studio apartments in major cities have eclipsed $500 a week, attributed to a significant shortage of purpose-built student accommodations and high returns sought by property investors.

The consequences of these rising costs are profound. Students, lacking adequate financial support, are compelled to take up part-time jobs, sacrificing their study time and thus impacting their academic performance. Some, like Dezu Hu, an RMIT media graduate, resort to extreme measures such as sleeping in cars or tents to manage expenses, as detailed by Australian broadcaster SBS.

Educational institutions are not standing by idly. Reuters reports that Sydney University and The University of New South Wales are taking steps to alleviate the accommodation crunch by securing additional beds from third-party providers and refurbishing university apartments, respectively. Yet, these measures seem like stopgap solutions to a problem that Your Investment Property Mag suggests will persist well beyond 2024.

The escalating housing costs not only impose financial strain but also emotional burdens on students. My, speaking to her personal experience, mentions the “intense guilt” over the rental expenses borne by her parents and her considerations for part-time work to alleviate the financial burden. This sentiment captures the resilience and optimism many students cling to, despite the uncertainty of the situation.

The housing crisis in Australia, as Linh Le’s article poignantly underscores, is more than an economic issue—it’s a human one, affecting the lives and futures of countless international students. With rental prices expected to continue their upward trajectory, the challenges faced by students like My are set to intensify, calling for more robust and long-term solutions from both educational institutions and policymakers.