News

By Annalucia Scotto di Clemente / Matthew Staff ||Edited by Eleonora Prior

Comments from government and students were translated from Italian to English by the writer. 

Apartment rent prices have never been higher as university students face difficulties in the search for a well-kept and affordable place to live. With monthly rent prices that arrive at €4000 for a two-room apartment in Rome, it is not an accessible sum for students on a budget.  

Last October, hundreds of students in Milan sparked a domino-effect protest across Italy over the increase of rents, occupying the areas in front of various Milanese universities with tents and banners demanding “money at home, study and income and not at war.” 

Students defined these high rents as an unsustainable situation and said that the solution proposed by the government to use the funds of the National Resistance and Resilience Plan is not concrete enough, since the system’s modalities of distribution are not balanced adequately.   

Most out-of-home students rely on the private rental market to find accommodation while studying, and the result is they often give up studying in another city. 

For this reason, the students of the communist youth organization”Cambiare Rotta” arrived at several Italian universities to make their voices heard against the increase in rents.  

In the peaceful protest, students said they hoped to attract media attention and be noticed by the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to ensure that studying does not become a luxury. 

Students highlighted three main points of the first discussion meeting between the students and the Ministry of Education: 

• The channelling of the National Resistance and Resilience Plan (NRRP) 
• Funds to public entities  
• The reintroduction of fair rent through the abolition of Law 431 of 1998, which regulates the modalities of rental contracts  

Ilaria Lamera, 23, an environmental engineering student from Bergamo, says she lived in a tent outside of the Milan Polytechnic in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci from the beginning of May last year. After three days, she was joined by other students from the same university.  

“One night I thought that it would have been nice to have a tent to sleep in to avoid travelling four hours to get back home again, and I got the idea of this protest,” Lamera said.  

Lamera took courage to start a fight against an increase in rents that never happened in Italy. In a few days, she was contacted by the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, and met the Dean of the Milan Polytechnic, Donatella Sciuto. 

“As rectors, this is something we have been denouncing for some time,” Sciuto said. “I also told the mayor: Milan is a city for old and rich people, and it takes accommodation not only for students but also for those who graduate and pay no rent.” 

The costs in Milan do not allow students from middle class families to rent rooms, said Lamera in an interview with La Repubblica. 

‘We are well aware of the critical issues, and we are aware of the problems that the housing crisis brings about the right to study, especially among students with lower incomes, says Lamera. 

In Milan, the price for a single room is commonly €700 per month. For a double room, however, the price is more affordable, but the rooms are very small and dirty. 

The problem of high rents is not a problem that affects only the city of Milan, but it’s a problem of the entire country. The protest in Milan soon spread to other Italian cities. 

After Lamera’s tent action, students of the left-wing organizations of La Sapienza University of Rome camped in front of the rectorate of the Roman university to denounce the impossibility of finding a room for less than €500 per month, expenses excluded. 

“We are alongside the students who these days demonstrate against the expensive rents to bring the attention of the public the difficulties of finding affordable housing for the offsite,” said Sapienza University chancellor Antonella Polimeni, after meeting the protesters in front of the university. “We are well aware of the critical issues, and we are aware of the problems that the housing crisis brings about the right to study, especially among students with lower incomes.” 

In Bologna and Turin, the student union UDU, University Students’ Union, also placed the tents in the garden of the Campus Einaudi.  

“Turin has 100,000 university students and bans every one with just over 200,000 beds,” the students said to La Presse. 

Professor Nicola De Luigi, social researcher at University of Bologna, says that families are Italy’s main social shock absorbers. Each student’s family becomes responsible and bearer of this problem. “The concept of meritocracy vanishes, because the only merit is to have a family that can bear the costs of access to university.” 

The union of university students also triggered the protest in Florence in front of the library of the University of Novoli. A city in which, according to Corriere Fiorentino, the high of rents is 26 percent in a year, triple the national average and double the city average, equal to about €18.5 per square meter every month. 

In the south of Italy, the first city to join was Cagliari, where students pitched a tent in front of the entrance of the former Aresu clinic, which has been home to some university courses in the Sardinian province for years.  

Emma Ruzzon, 23, President of the Students’ Council of the same university and Modern Literature student, camped in Padova in front of Palazzo Bo, the historical seat of the university. 

According to Tecnocasa, a leading agency in real estate, the increase of out-of-home professionals and students coupled with elevated interest rates to buy a home, result in a heightened demand for rental properties and a spike in rent prices. 

This cause is combined with a decreasing student accommodation offer since many property owners are turning to the market of short rentals for tourism purposes, which have a more important economic return. 

In the second half of 2022, the rental mark, highlights an increase in rent of 3.9 percent for studios, 4.2 percent for two-room apartments and 4.0 percent for three-room apartments, according to Tecnocasa report.

Overall, rents increased to an average of 13.4 euros for square meter per month.  

Considering the annual change, prices have increased by 11.6 percent in the last twelve months. Moreover, prices for single rooms have risen by 11 percent since 2021, reaching an average of € 439 per month, according to a report by Immobiliare.it Insights.

Typically, the rent for a room in Milan is around €800 compared to €600 in Rome and €500 in Bologna. The recent escalation in the cost of rents, especially university rents, is just the latest escalation of an upward trend. 

After the nationwide protest, the government said it plans to allocate over 900 million euros of the National Resistance and Resilience Plan for university housing by June 30, 2026, to create about 60,000 more beds than existing ones.  

Minister of Education Anna Bernini signed a decree after the protests to establish an inter-ministerial working group: the technicians were asked to identify the average cost for each bed at the territorial level, considering the reference market values, the type of property, and the level of services offered. There is also a 15 percent reduction in the final cost per bed. 

“My and the government’s goal is to do it quickly, but do it well,” said Bernini. “We all agreed on the right to study from the first meeting: we need more resources.”  

However, while the students have expressed their demands by occupying the grounds of universities with tents, the government has not yet transformed its decrees into concrete actions. 

---