If you’re living in Melbourne, by now you might have heard about the Student Squatters in inner city Faraday St and their campaign to kick Melbourne University into investing in real solutions that address the housing affordability issues facing students.

It would seem Universities are too busy investing their money into new campuses and ways to attract new students than deal with the very real issue of poverty amongst students. According to a source in Sydney, the University of Sydney and UTS have done very little to create affordable housing for their students in the Chippendale and Darlington areas, but at the same time are buying up even more land and real estate for new buildings. University of Sydney have reportedly just spent millions on their main Camperdown campus with impressive new buildings and are also developing whole new campuses at Callan Park. At the same time the University has been sending out ’starving menus’ to alumni begging them for donations to help hungry students. One University has been offering free food-aid to students, some of which pay an insane $300/week on rent. With the rising costs of living we face a time when students sacrifice their study-time (an education they have to pay for in HECS) to work and pay the bills.

This giving with one hand and taking with the other is outrageous and I’d call it ironic if I didn’t feel this was such a serious issue – our generation is getting totally fucked over! How  can we allow this to keep going?