For when a sizable majority of the participants in the national economic game play this same strategy, then interest rates are bound to increase to shake loose the houses from the inefficient and parasitic semi-professional landlord class.

We’d better hope the counter strategy of tax payers buying the bankrupt mortgage lenders, such as Northern Rock, doesn’t lead to a lose-lose outcome!

I identify the lack of University student housing as the root of the problem because if this root was removed, it would resolve all student accommodation issues (not issuing from the poor conduct of the student themselves) and prevent their reoccurance.

This uprooting approach does not necessarily appear as a direct solution to the different manifestations of the problem. So it may seem counter intuitive.

A small correction Niall: only overseas (i.e. non-EU) students are given priority, not all international students. Students who come from within the European Union are always treated as home students, with whatever this may entail.

(This is often quite problematic. For example, consider the university’s Rent Guarantee Scheme. This exists because most foreign students are not expected to have a relative in the UK who can sign as their rent guarantor. For some strange reason, however, the university’s Rent Guarantee Scheme only applies to overseas students. This leaves EU students into a rather disadvantaged position. Most of them will also not have relatives in the UK, but it is up to the landlord to decide whether non-UK citizens can be their guarantors. In many cases, this has created problems. Additionally, college storage facilities are not offered to EU students, on the grounds that they are home students – only the ISA helps them with that.)

“discrimination in relation to the provision of housing services on the grounds of nationality is a faux pas. The argument to support International students also applies to home students because both are students.”

There is a reason why this takes place. First of all, as I’ve already explained, there is the issue with rent guarantors. On the one hand, international students can face serious problems because of that, so they need some kind of help from the university. On the other hand, the university would not want to take the risk of guaranteeing the rents of all international students. Offering them campus accommodation is a good compromise. This way, students can avoid all this hassle and the university is not taking a considerable financial risk.

That said, the `trial by fire’ of interacting with for-profit providers of basic-need services tempers students and contributes to the broadening of their horizons: a noble goal for Universities.

This was the college system, and it prepared a comfortable physical environment for students to excel themselves in academic and other pursuits.

Unfortunately, the emphasis has shifted from this pleasant physical environment which supports learning to quite another. The change occurred slowly and over a long period of time.

As it is, Students play the role of supporting the ranks of the semi-professional landlord who has purchased (with debt) former council houses or recently constructed credit-boom properties and is probably servicing their loans to (recently nationalised) financial institutions.

The privatisation of natural monopolies to provide utilities (such as water, electricity, Internet) has also added to the distractions for should-be students. These utilities are become reliable cash-machines for capitalists in straightened times due to their boring regularity of income.

The University could create a study environment that advantages its students by removing these stressors of non-academic origin.

I could not have summed up my own experience better myself. I was the stay-away and deserter of my 2nd-year household, and did indeed spend my 3rd year with some great mates, reminiscing about (and learning from) my mistakes. Our second year maybe isn’t supposed to be “merely a crucial character-building exercise”, but that’s how mine turned out and, in the long run, I’ll be all the better for it.