Student Hostel Costs

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30447, 22 May 1964, Page 12

Student Hostel Costs

Sir, —In your editorial on the proposed Dunedin Teachers’ College, you suggest that plans for future students’ residences should be drawn with greater economy; and that if a house for a family of four can be built for less than £7OOO, a students’ residence should be able to be built for less than £lBOO a bed. I suggest that if your advice were followed for university students, we would find ourselves with residences not worth having. It is not only that students should have single study bedrooms of an adequate size; they must also be insulated from noise and sufficiently heated, for study. The building must be built of permanent materials and provided with public rooms of suitable dignity. There must be provision for domestic quarters, and flats for the warden and (preferably)' one or two other senior members of staff. It is surely better to have a few good residences—and then seek other solutions for the accommodation of the remaining students—than to settle for a series of meanly conceived buildings not much better than transit camps.—Yours etc., HELEN GARRETT. May 19, 1964.