Youth hostels: a lifeline for students in need of accommodation?

"I went back to school this morning, tonight my only solution is to take a bed in a hostel, otherwise I'll sleep on the street," explains Carla Mejean as she pulls her suitcase to the reception of the HI Strasbourg 2 Rives youth hostel.

"I've been looking since I got my acceptance response in June, and with my tight budget of 400 euros I haven't found anything," notes the 22-year-old third-year anthropology student at the University of Strasbourg, bitterly. Without a place to stay at the end of the week, she will have to return to her parents' house in Nancy on the weekends and fears she will have to make many trips back and forth in the near future.

The Alsace Student Federation (Afges) has noted an increase in back-to-school costs of 2 to 3% this year: 3.156 euros, this is the sum that a first-year undergraduate student who no longer lives with his parents and is not a scholarship holder must pay for the 2024 back-to-school period, according to the Alsatian association.

No response from Crous

To solve this problem, Afges is helping around forty students from Strasbourg by paying for up to 11 nights in a youth hostel until mid-October.

"We are funding 44 hostel places but in reality we have exceeded 400 requests for emergency shelters," says Chloé Hayd, president of the federation. "We can renew this aid but after a certain point it becomes difficult, and students no longer have a place to go."

Laurène Lita-Iccia is one of the students who is taking advantage of this temporary housing scheme. "I am housed with three other people who are in the same situation as me. I have contacted the Crous several times, without any response so far," laments the 19-year-old first-year modern literature student, who arrived from Gabon to start her new school year on 10 September.

In Alsace, the Crous rental stock (the public institution that manages catering, housing and health for students) has 5.503 places for... 87.000 higher education students in Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, according to the Strasbourg Academy.

Michel Deneken, the president of the University of Strasbourg, said he was "very committed to the serious issue of housing" during his annual back-to-school press conference. He did, however, point out that these difficulties are part of a "national context" of a real estate crisis: "It is a problem for all French people," he noted.

"A brake on continuing studies"

In 2022, "more than one in five high school graduates (nearly 100.000) changed academies when entering higher education" according to a note from the Ministry of Higher Education, published at the end of 2023: 22% of them must therefore look for accommodation at the start of the school year. A significant figure to which must be added students changing direction, those further along in their higher education or foreign students.

Allan Manieca only received his letter of admission to the sommelier school a week before his return: "I had no choice but to come to this hostel," admits the 21-year-old wine enthusiast. "All the places in student residences are taken, my only hope is to wait for places to become available through people who leave their course."

In 2023, Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Higher Education and Research, promised an increase in the number of accommodations "so that access to independent housing does not constitute an obstacle to continuing studies".

The ministry announced a stock of 240.000 social student housing units in 2024, including 175.000 managed by the Crous. The resigning government highlights the 30.000 new Crous housing units delivered since 2017 and still promises a total of 65.000 new properties available by the end of Macron's second five-year term. A figure that is still largely insufficient.