Since the introduction of the loan system in the 2015-2016 academic year, the share of Dutch students living away from home has fallen from 53 percent to 44 percent this year. This appears from Thursday published Numbers of the National Student Housing Monitor, of the trade association Kences. The decrease is due to the earlier abolition of the basic grant, which means that students have less money to pay the rent for a room, but also due to the large shortage of rooms. As a result, a quarter of 25-year-old students still live at home.
Currently, about 400,000 Dutch students live outside their parental home, while more than 350,000 students live at home. A considerable part of the latter group would certainly like to live in rooms. For 48 percent of them, the high costs – especially rent – are the main reason for continuing to live at home. About 20 percent say they live at home because they cannot find suitable accommodation. This housing problem is particularly prevalent in the student cities of Amsterdam, Delft, Eindhoven, Leiden, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, Den Bosch, Utrecht and Zwolle. Only 19 percent of people living at home say they have no need to live in rooms.
The absolute number of students living away from home in the Netherlands has increased compared to the academic year 2015-2016. This is because the share of international students has increased from 9 percent to 16 percent since 2015. According to Kences, almost all international students need student accommodation if they come to study in the Netherlands.