Hello everyone, it’s John Chiko again. So today I will be talking about the students of the various educational institutions of Coventry, in particular Coventry University and Warwick University, which have been the biggest drivers of the influx of students coming to live and study in the city. Although both institutions bring in many students, they each attract a certain type of student from a certain economic background if you know what I mean, which we will get into a bit later.

I will start with Coventry University. The flagship institution of the city, which gained its status as a university in 1992, formerly called Coventry Polytechnic (1987 – 1992), is a public research university with linked origins with the founding of the Coventry School of Design in 1843. The University’s Student body in 2019/2020 consisted of 38,430 students: 31,645 undergraduates and 6,785 postgraduates. Part-time students in 2013–14 made up 15% of undergraduates and 39% of postgraduates. The drop-out rate for first year undergraduates is 8.9% and the undergraduate intake from state schools is 97%.

As you can see, Coventry University is an industry within the city, both for the students and for the professionals. Coventry University has become a haven for students all over the country and the world to have access to a high level of education while living in a city that is affordable compared to other cities in the country, especially now with the cost of living.

Accommodation for students is provided by the university and by private companies. Coventry University owns four facilities for undergraduate students: Bishop Gate, Godiva Place, Singer Hall and Cycle Works, as well as several houses around Coventry, mostly in the Earlsdon area. It also manages four facilities: Apollo House, Lynden House, Radford Road, Parish Rooms and Pillar Box, the latter being exclusively for postgraduate students.

The University has successfully turned the City of Coventry into a highly functional Educational Industrial Complex, that can accommodate national and international students, ensuring that their education and accommodation needs are met. In total, the university’s accommodation can provide for 3,579 students. It is a shame that Coventry City Council cannot do the same for its homeless population, if only they had the same resources and backing as the university.

Now let me move on to the University of Warwick, the more posh cousin of Coventry University, located in the same city of course. It is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The University was founded in 1965 as part of a government initiative to expand higher education. It is primarily based on a 290 hectares (720 acres) campus. It is organised into three faculties – Arts; Science, Engineering and Medicine; and Social Sciences. As of 2021, Warwick has around 29,534 full-time students and 2,691 academic and research staff, with an average yearly intake of 4,950 undergraduates out of 38,071 applicants. The annual income of the institution for 2022-2023 was £828.2 million of which £144.1 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £722 million. Warwick Arts Centre is a multi-venue arts complex in the university’s main campus and is the largest venue of its kind in the UK.

The Warwick campus currently has around 6,300 student bedrooms across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate residences. All the residences are self-catered, and each has residential tutors and a warden. Warwick guarantees accommodation for all first-year undergraduate students, regardless of their present address. Many of the university’s postgraduate population are also catered for, with some specific residences available for postgraduate living. Each residence accommodates a mixture of students both domestic and foreign, male and female, and, sometimes, undergraduate and postgraduate.

In their second and third years, many students live in one of the surrounding towns: either Coventry, Canley, Kenilworth, or Royal Leamington Spa, where they can live in student accommodation or independently owned residences. Since 2011, Warwick has constructed two new halls of residences for the students. Bluebell, opened in 2011, offers accommodation in flats of eight people, with a total of 505 single rooms for first-year undergraduates. The Sherbourne residences was opened in 2012, which similarly provides 527 ensuite rooms to first-years and was extended with a further 267 rooms in 2017. A further 700 new rooms were built in the Cryfield Village, namely Cryfield ‘Townhouse’ and ‘Standard’ residences.

The University of Warwick is also great at ensuring that its student population is able to gain access to accommodation during their studies, far more effective than the Coventry City Council at providing accommodation to its local population. It seems like both universities are more effective in doing so.

Now the question is, why can’t the local authority of Coventry achieve the same for its locals, when it is them that administer the city? Is it a lack of resources or perhaps it is not profitable to help those that are in need. My only hope is that Coventry City Council begins to operate like the universities that operate within its borders. If it gives as much care and attention to its citizens, as much as the universities do their students, then I believe that homelessness in Coventry can be abolished, to such an extent that it may begin a new era in the city. The question is though, is that something the council wants to achieve?

 

 

References

https://www.ucas.com/explore/unis/dfed9a6a/coventry-university/stats?studyYear=current “2013/14 Students by HE provider, level, mode and domicile”. Higher Education Statistics Agency. Archived from the original (XLSX) on 3 March 2016.

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-study

https://www.theguardian.com/education/table/2009/jun/04/university-drop-out-rates

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2011/apr/21/coventry-university-variable-fees

https://www.coventry.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/6025/cs_h7_student_accomodation_in_coventry-supplementary_evidence.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20120213192311/http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/accommodation/studentaccommodation/all/campus

https://web.archive.org/web/20120503035726/http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/accommodation/studentaccommodation/all/campus/residences/sherbourne