Life for rent

As accommodation providers consider discounts, a survey assesses levels of content among student renters

Playbook said yesterday that the higher education Covid-19 story with the most potential for crossover into the national dailies this week was likely to be the rising number of rent strikes at UK universities—and so it has already proved, with a slew of reports yesterday and more expected today.

We also said that students would rightly solicit widespread sympathy in the media and beyond—after all, it is an easy sell. Should people pay for something that they have been told, by law, they cannot access? Imagine how you’d feel if you still had to pay in full for that Bolton Wanderers season ticket you splashed out on last year, or your annual pass to the National Theatre. It’s not hard to see why students’ plight resonates—although your correspondent knows from bitter experience that a Bolton season ticket is always a poor financial decision, pandemic or not.