The University of Lincoln has been severely criticized by students in the last few weeks. After announcing that they would reserve up to 700 rooms in approved student accommodation, “The Pavilions” students feel left out in the cold by their University.
Chris Goss, a second year Journalism student said: “I live at the Pavilions now, and I would have liked to continue living there for my third year. But this is as of now not possible because the University has reserved all the rooms for first year students.
Chris said he feels its “unfair” to second and third students who would like the security of a room as well. It feels like the University has betrayed us”.
Chris added that the University should have announced earlier that they would be “reserving” the rooms for first years, he said: “I would have had more of a chance to find a room in time if the University told me that they would book out Pavilions.
Chris is not the only student desperately searching for a room for the next school year. Students reacted to the announcement by starting the facebook page: ‘Pavs Stole My Home’.
The creator of the page, calling themselves “Pavs sold my home” on facebook started the page with the following statement: “Pavs sold all the d**n rooms without a single warning to their loyal customers; awful! Here’s a page to yuck it up and spread the word about alternative arrangements.
Already a few opportunities inside. Spread the word to all those forgotten, tossed aside and affected by Pavs’ big, dumb f*** up.
The University has responded to the outrage by saying: “It is, unfortunately, impossible for every student to be accommodated in these developments, as the University’s full-time higher education population in Lincoln is more than twice this number at around 8,100”.
The University explained their reasoning and said that: “In common with the majority of universities in the UK, the University of Lincoln seeks to prioritise the allocation of student accommodation to new entrant students. The expected number of new students on the Brayford campus from September 2011 is several hundred higher than was the case in 2010.”
Lenora Caton a third year Business and Marketing student who lived in Pavilions in her first year said: “I think it’s ridiculous that Pavilions is booked out, if I was not graduating this year I would be upset as well. What about the students who want to have a room for themselves? Pavilions is almost the only option for them”.
The University said that in the future they would review its student accommodation strategy to ensure that the availability of high quality student accommodation continues to be in line with our ambitious plans.”
