Published by:
The Class Foundation
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Higher education, student mobility, and student housing industry news from October 2020.

October 30
October 28
- Fewer non-EU students plan to stay in the Netherlands, Nuffic survey shows
- Australian business schools: will overseas students return?
- UK: poll shows demand for bitesize learning
October 27
- Paris student rent more costly than London according to HousingAnywhere report
- We are ‘cash cows’ for Irish universities, say international students
- RESIcast Osborne Clarke And Greystar Discuss BTR Operations During Covid19
- Tourists and renters to be permitted in Dublin student accommodation
- WeWork puts Spanish business up for sale as Fitch cuts rating – report
- Pandemic has proven the business case for BTR
- LSE unveils plan to become UK’s first carbon neutral university
- The home/office hybrid: the impact of covid-19 on coliving and coworking
- React News: Catella discusses Europe’s resi market, €1bn fund target & UK plans
October 26
- Keeping Up With Growing Demand for Off-Campus Student Housing in the US
- Continued student interest in France despite Covid according to speakers at a Class of 2020 virtual summit
- Students move into three new UPP schemes in Exeter
- Xior sees a rise in net rental income, while the occupancy rate remains the same [Dutch]
- Coventry University’s campus in Wrocław, Poland has opened applications to students from outside the EU wishing to study on its undergraduate degree programs.
- Madrid, at the tail of the European ‘coliving’ with 410 operational beds [Spanish]
October 24
- Studying in a new city and you only know your fellow students through the screen. How Corona is changing student life. [German]
- The UK government must support students stuck in Covid nightmare at universities
October 23
- The Big Return: Why This is the Moment to Bet on Cities.
- Housing association Bo-Ex and student housing provider SSH intend to exchange homes to better match their target group [Dutch]
- LifeX, a Danish startup, believes co-living can help fight housing and climate crisis, intolerance & loneliness; raises €6M
- Nearly 500 students remain living in a potentially unsafe housing complex in west London while waiting for alternative accommodation.
October 22
- Research by Savills shows a rise in international students studying in the UK, who are likely to live in purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA).
- New HEPI report reveals over 350,000 more higher education places will be needed in England by 2035 to keep up with demand, while Scotland will see a decline in demand for places over the same period, despite increased participation in higher education
- Hybrid education: grandes écoles in France invest in digital technology [French]
- Portcullis House: Co-living model to form part of major planned development in Scottish city centre
- Woman challenges permission for 358 student bed spaces in South Dublin
- Why do international students choose to stay in Denmark after graduation?
- From a focus on flexible mobility formats to the new Erasmus+ App, innovation is on the horizon for the Erasmus 2021-2027 program, according to expert speakers at the virtual EAIE Conference.
- The presidents of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), Universities Austria (UNIKO) and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) unite in call for EU investment in education, research, and innovation
- The coronavirus crisis has prompted a surge of interest in short, low-cost, online courses (micro-credentials) at higher education institutions.
- Is the Pandemic Changing Student Housing Design? Panelists at NHMC’s virtual conference discuss the acceleration of design trends
- Bristol’s student housing boom, one in every 38 properties is now a student home
- Cheyne Capital has raised about £500m (€544m) for its latest real estate debt fund, as it seeks to capitalise on dislocation in the European lending markets. They also recently announced the completion of four loans backed against residential, co-living, office, and student accommodation assets in Europe
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Study Abroad: Oct 2020 Educations.com Survey Results
- Unwanted: The dilemma of international students in the COVID-19 crisis
- Co-living In The Time of COVID: Why Shared Housing Startups Say The Sector is Rebounding
- The new way of living in Amsterdam: “huisje-boompje-beestje” becomes a house-cinema-launderette. [Dutch]
- 1509 Portuguese students left to do Erasmus + abroad. Last year there were 5192. The proportion is identical in relation to foreign students who come to Portugal. [Portuguese]
- Kuwait’s Sovereign Wealth Fund has made its debut in Italy with a €500 million investment in an urban regeneration project in Milan.
October 21
- What to do about falling international student enrolment in the US?
- “Youthless policy is useless policy” – ESN Participates in the Eight Cycle of the EU Youth Dialogue
- Global Student Living official media partner for The Class Conference
- Spatial Experience creative partner for The Class Conference & 2021 trend report
- Rallies and rent strikes: how students and staff are uniting against Covid chaos in the UK
- What to do about falling international student enrolment?
- Improvements will be made to the inclusiveness of International Credit Mobility in the next Erasmus+ program, with new funding around visas and insurance, and the maintaining of current grant levels for travel
- Johnson ‘optimistic’ on UK’s EU recruitment prospects post-Brexit
- Which types of data do institutions need to maximize their potential to recruit international students?
- In the second day of the NMHC/InterFace Student Housing conference, industry professionals discussed the importance of communication and flexibility in weathering the coronavirus storm
- Call to claw back Covid-19 relief for student accommodation refusing refunds in Ireland
- Jos Vranken, Managing Director at NBTC Holland Marketing on COVID-19, Overtourism, and Holland’s Sustainable Destination Strategy
- French university towns shaken by decline in students [French]
- Dutch pension provider and asset manager APG is joining forces with the National Pension Service of South Korea for collaborative investments in large international infrastructure and commercial property projects.
October 20
- How Bachelor’s Degrees in the U.S. and Europe Differ
- UK university students share mixed responses to Covid-19 measures
- Quares Student Housing wants to expand to Leuven, Belgium [Dutch]
October 19
October 16
- The International Student Journey: From Awareness to Alumni Advocates
- The future of shared living: 5 bold scenarios straight from the collective mind of the field
- Why Esther Bahne, former BMW exec, is betting big on co-living
October 15
- Demand for student accommodation in Spain remains strong despite the crisis [Spanish]
- Manchester City Council look to increase city’s PBSA pipeline
October 14
- The Future of Hotel Design: Mobile guest rooms, enhanced contactless room controls, robotic servers and pop-up dining areas are just a few of the ideas hotel designers are considering for the post-Covid travel world.
- Universities not transparent about risk of international partnerships to academic freedom, experts warn
- Long Covid impact ‘must be considered’ as cases on campus soar. Academics warn that staff, and students, are at risk of a debilitating illness that research suggests can last for months
- A new association, The Global Alliance of International Student Advancement, has been launched to champion international students as they face issues related to “Covid-19, government hostility and widespread institutional neglect”.
- Britons’ right to study abroad restricted next year, as there will be more formalities and costs to study in other EU countries after the Brexit transition period ends
- “Classes have just started and I already have the impression of sinking”: French students challenged by discouragement [French]
- Frédérique Vidal, French Minister of Higher Education: “This year, student departures abroad have fallen by 20%” [French]
- How Covid has changed student mobility. A study by the University of Varese. [Italian]
- Outbreaks of covid-19 in Portuguese higher education, majority of those infected are Erasmus students [Portuguese]
October 13
- Government to blame for Covid crisis in UK universities, says UCU
- In Spain universities have become the main battle front against the virus in the educational landscape. [Spanish]
- Nuffic has confirmed it will close its network of Netherlands Education Support Offices overseas and lose its Holland Alumni Network funding in 2021
- UK government was warned campus Covid outbreaks ‘very likely’. Sage document from last month says closing universities would have reduced transmission rates
- Spring won’t be better for student housing P3s in the US, analysts say
- International real estate investment firm Round Hill Capital and NBK Capital have bought a 412-bed student accommodation development in Cork for €83m
- Universities’ digital transformation will be focus of next THE forum which will take place on the 21st of October
- The Manchester city council wants to recoup up to £17m in council tax revenue by expanding the city’s offer of purpose-built student accommodation and attract students out of private rented sector housing.
- SPH reported a net loss of $83.7 million for the year, though the revenue from their PBSA portfolio grew strongly by 60.6 per cent or $22.1 million due to the Student Castle portfolio and a full year’s revenue from the acquisitions made in the 2019
- We must “leave the universities open” to “ensure the success of students and their integration” according to Jean Chambaz, president of Sorbonne University and Thomas Clay, provisional administrator of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne [French]
- The pandemic has made finding accommodation in Germany much more difficult for many students. Many seekers are desperate because the dormitories in many university towns are full. [German]
October 12
- A stress-test of the physical university
- Higher education teachers in Portugal start a strike this Monday to demand the safeguarding of health security conditions in the institutions, a protest that will only end when the problems are resolved. [Portuguese]
- Students applying for universities in the UK starting in autumn 2021 have been encouraged by Ucas and Universities UK (UUK) to be ambitious with their 2021 applications. The sector bodies point out that there was no substantial rise in deferrals in 2020 and capacity will likely expand
- Global student housing marketplace University Living has launched service-based platform software globally for accommodation partners and students in a bid to help them streamline the management of accommodation properties.
- US institutions looking to recruit international students during the global pandemic should keep in mind these key insights from the recent QS coronavirus survey analysis.
- Round Hill, NBK make fourth Irish student housing investment
October 11
October 10
- French higher education institutions must meet a maximum level of 50% of their capacity since Tuesday, October 6. [French]
- Housing Hand’s Managing Director Jeremy Robinson explains how the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having could result in positive longer-term solutions for the student accommodation sector
October 9
- Student accommodation bookings have dipped globally this year as a result of the pandemic, but countries have faired better than others, research by accommodation marketplace Student.com and market research and advisory firm BONARD has found.
- Bungalow CEO on co-living in the age of coronavirus
October 8
- Student housing in the US could rebound quickly in the spring semester if universities are able to reopen, that is. Student housing investor Fred Pierce is confident that will happen once the election ends, regardless of the outcome.
- Why stricter measures for students and blaming them for infection spikes is wrong
October 5
- Volume of UK purpose-built student accommodation surpasses university supplied accommodation for the first time
- Scottish unis commit to Covid-19 care package
- Is university expansion ‘sucking the brains’ out of UK towns?
- Students in UK given more time to sign next year’s rental contracts
- Forbes: Five Ways Higher Education Can Thrive (Not Just Survive) Post-Pandemic
- DTZ Investors backs London rental market with £70m co-living project
- A&G launches an investment focused on student residences, ‘coliving’ and ‘coworking’ [Spanish]
- Universities in Paris and Marseille, areas of maximum coronavirus alert, will have to readjust the organization of their teaching. Some establishments have already taken the lead [French]
- Off-site student rentals, how demand changes with covid – higher claims and rental discounts according to SoloAffitti data
- Government ‘must act now’ on European student recruitment – UUK
- Arthur launches new proptech function to monitor Covid-19 cases
October 4
October 3
- Student accommodation: renters face stress over tenancies in Covid crisis
- Shortage of accommodation to be expected in Belgium according to Quares [French]
- As already feared, international student enrollment is down in France, a drop of 8.6% compared to fall 2019 [French]
October 2
- The investment fund Quares Student Housing wants to raise 10 million euros to renovate outdated student rooms [Dutch]
- Uliving: how the shared housing startup overcame the pandemic [Portuguese]
- 1 House, 40 Roommates? During Covid, Co-Living Adds Up
- Paris-based Colette nabs €1 million to grow its co-living solution for students and lonely seniors
- Unite Students, UK providers of student accommodation, has completed construction of its latest development worth £114 million
- PensionDanmark invests €200m in sustainable wood-built student units
- Students in the UK turn to private renting as the future of life in college grows uncertain
- Irish ELT schools told they must resume in-person teaching
- Scottish Human Rights Commission expresses concern for trapped university students