The impoverishment of college life: "What was once an exploratory social period has become a high-stakes balancing act between love, money, and independence"

As a fresher, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I walked onto campus expecting something straight out of a brochure: a life filled with packed society events, student protests, spontaneous nights out, and friendships formed almost by accident.

From Normal People to every American college film ever made, university is sold as a place of risk and discovery, where your identity as a student is one to be proud of – and grateful for.
Unfortunately, for a lot of students in Ireland today, that idealised version of university feels increasingly out of reach.

Whether it’s the lingering effects of Covid, the housing crisis, cost-of-living rises, or the digitisation of education, university has become less a lifestyle and more of an obligation; and being a university student feels less like an identity and more of an occupation. University has always been about more than lecture theatres and libraries. It’s a third space. And like most third spaces in Dublin, it’s starting to fade away.

Walk around campus outside lecture hours, and you’ll find a distinct lack of the vibrant communities advertised by universities everywhere. On some days, it can feel as though the busiest building on campus is the gym.

DISTRACTIONS ARE WELCOME

The housing crisis has transformed students into commuters. A survey by UL Student Life revealed that 60% of commuting students travel more than one hour each way to campus. In the same survey, 97.7% of respondents reported that long-distance travel negatively affected their academic performance. Many students are so burned out from the back-and-forth that they avoid coming to campus altogether. Public transport offers no help, being so unreliable that it takes students hours to get home.

These students struggle academically by missing classes; they lose studying time; and they miss out on utilising academic resources. They also struggle to socialise – a key feature of any good college experience. They miss the unplanned nights out, the society events, or even grabbing a coffee after classes.

Those who can find a bed or room, are vulnerable to high rent, scams and poor conditions. Data from the Irish Council for International Students says 54% of students reported that their mental health has suffered as a direct result of the housing crisis. 41% stated that their academic performance dropped due to housing-related stress.

The cost-of-living crisis only deepens the problem. Switcher.ie’s ‘Student Cost of Living Guide 2026’ says that those eligible for free tuition fees can expect to spend an average of €16,158 going to college – approximately €479 more per year than in 2025 and €1,060 more than in 2023. Dublin remains the most expensive city for students, where average costs have reached €1,943 per month. Rent comprises the bulk of these costs.

Even going out has become prohibitively expensive. With a pint in a campus pub like Trinity’s Pavilion Bar costing €6.50 and taxis becoming an inevitability once public transport stops running, a single night out can cost a small fortune.

Perhaps the biggest loss, however, is the disappearance of idle time.

University is supposed to be a place of exploration, where distractions are welcome and even encouraged. Some of the most important things you learn at university have absolutely nothing to do with your course.

A ROMANTICISED LIGHT

College is a breeding ground for developing social skills. Your identity becomes synonymous with discovery, both in and out of classrooms. When students leave as soon as the lectures are over, they miss out on the other parts of university that can shape you more than your degree will.

Dating has become a case of extremes: long-term relationships or perpetual singledom. Some students rush into living together, driven by financial necessity. Others are avoiding dating altogether, choosing to focus on studies, work, and survival instead.

Risk is much harder to embrace when life feels unstable. If students are worried about money, housing, and work, something as simple as asking someone out can feel like another big decision requiring careful consideration. Living with your parents doesn’t help either, for obvious reasons. What was once an exploratory social period has become a high-stakes balancing act between love, money, and independence, or what Trinity News dubbed the ‘cost of shagging’ crisis in April.

The same applies to friendship. One of the most valuable parts of university is that it invites you outside the social circles you arrived with. Before university, people’s worlds are shaped by the schools, towns, and groups of friends they’ve known for years. Campus is often the first place where you are surrounded by people you’d never have met otherwise.

In terms of their careers, students who are forced to spend less time on campus can miss out on the organic networking connections, the society ranks to put on a CV, the casual talks with professors after classes, and the unpaid academic internships that – for better or worse – make a difference when trying to secure a job in an increasingly competitive market.

The solution is not telling students to socialise more, or holding university in a romanticised light that no longer represents reality. It’s about enabling students to come back to campus. If universities and governments want student life to be vibrant, they have to recognise that accessibility is the heart of the matter.

A campus is not created by buildings alone; it’s created by the student body that inhabits it. Which means that we need policies put in place which enable students to get back to loving college life to the full. Nothing less will change the current bleak landscape.

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