![]() ![]() Her tutor did not warn her she would still be liable for her rent when she told him she was worried about living in her student accommodation during the pandemic and was considering leaving, she says. “I’ve been having sleepless nights most nights, and so have all my family,” she says, sounding close to tears. Her request then went to the final stage of the university’s appeals process. She appealed against the university’s decision to hold her to her rental contract but her claim was rejected twice by different reviewers. Recently she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression: “I’m now on anti-depressants.” Before she left for university, she had been a cheerful, sporty young woman who was crowned student of the year at her former sixth form college. Having such a large debt hanging over her had a huge impact on her mental health, Gracie says. The estimate was based on a survey carried out by the money advice website Save the Student.Ī survey suggests university students have ‘wasted’ almost £1bn on empty rooms in flatshares and halls of residence that they have been unable to use because of Covid restrictions. Gracie’s case emerged in the same week it was claimed that university students have “wasted” almost £1bn on empty rooms in flatshares and halls of residence that they have been unable to use because of coronavirus restrictions. Despite losing her scholarship and her access to student loan finance by quitting her course, she was still liable for rent for the rest of the academic year, unless someone else decided to move into her room, the university told her. Her cooling off-period had, in fact, ended three weeks before she took up her place at university. She assumed that because she had a two-week cooling-off period in which she could leave her course without being liable for any fees, the same terms would apply to her accommodation.īut the small print of her rental contract, the first one she had signed in her life, stated otherwise. “I felt trapped in my room.”Ĭoncerned about her mental health and wellbeing, Gracie’s family supported her decision to leave her course, and she moved out only six days after she had arrived, on 3 October. “I just couldn’t cope, being there, with the Covid situation what it was,” she says, adding that she was scared of mingling with other students and using the communal kitchen. Gracie, who received free school meals when a pupil, won a highly coveted sports scholarship to study coaching and sports science at Nottingham Trent last year but left less than a week into her course after local newspaper reports that coronavirus cases were rising in the city’s student hotspots. ![]() We don’t have that sort of money lying around.” I just couldn’t cope, being there, with the Covid situation what it was Gracie “I don’t have a job and none of my family are working.
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