The increase in signups of international Master students at the university has forced Idealis to take measures. Some 130 extra students will arrive from countries outside the EU in Wageningen, which is more than the university expected. The university has a housing guarantee for international students. Idealis has taken over this responsibility this year and they will have to take action to make sure that they can guarantee a room for every international student.
Beds
In the past couple of weeks, Idealis has already used 64 rooms from DUWO to create extra housing capacity for the international students. ‘This means the students rent their rooms at DUWO. But because we prepared the rooms, we technically arranged a room for them‘, says spokesperson Hellen Albers of Idealis.
Idealis had around a hundred international students who were still actively applying for rooms on their website last week. Albers says sixty of them will be offered a room in the next couple of weeks. But this is not enough, Idealis have signed a deal with hotels Hof of Wageningen and PTC+ in Ede to use 63 of their beds. These hotel rooms will be used for emergency housing. The students in who are going to stay in these rooms can later on move to a student room of Idealis when they are offered one.
Panick
Some international students started to panick the last couple of weeks had not found a room through Idealis even though they responded on the website. Albers: ‘We communicate all the time that more rooms will become available in the next couple of weeks. But the students can only see what we are currently offering and what their rank is on the waiting list.’ Idealis wants to create more emergency housing next year to tackle the problems international students are facing right now. Albers: ‘It’s very hard to manage this proces because the university tells us very late how many international students are coming to Wageningen.’
The help the students get has already improved. Idealis uses a van to bring the international students to their new rooms. The university used to do this in the previous years. They also give the students extra information about their accommodation.
Housing shortage
‘Idealis is doing everything they can to help the students,’ says Ingrid Hijman, head of the Student Services Centre at the university. ‘The allocation system of the rooms is slow and this should be improved. There are more international students coming in than we had expected. And we still don’t know the exact number of students who are going to be studying here. The students coming from EU countries can still sign up until August 31st.’ It looked like there was no housing shortage but Hijman has doubts about this.