The housing crisis and the shortage of rents deepen more and more in Bariloche and they began to influence university enrollment, which registered a drop in the number of entrants, attributed in part to the difficulty in finding accommodation.
The dean of Bariloche Regional University Center of the National University of Comahue (Unco), Marcelo Alonso, said that this is an obvious limitation and they are concerned regarding the issue. He pointed out that the university has IPPV institutional houses that can house 28 students. Those who apply for this scholarship must meet conditions related to their socioeconomic situation and also with an academic performance floor. But the offer is very restricted.
“We have a record that some did the registration process but if they don’t get the scholarship or a suitable rent, they never start their studies. Or they don’t sign up directly,” Alonso said.
This time of year is crucial to that decision, because the registration windows have just closed, the CRUB began to teach the entrance courses this month and classes begin on March 6. To find a rental, young people must move quickly, in a market with very little supply, which hardly revives at all with the end of the tourist season.
The National University of Río Negro (UNRN) has detected a similar difficulty in relation to the impediments faced by students. And the same thing happens at the Teacher Training Institute, which provides initial, primary, special education and philosophy teachers, and where some 2,500 students from Bariloche and the Region attend.
In the local settlement of the Comahue University the 2020 enrollment (the last pre-pandemic) registered the admission of 778 students. Since then the decline has been more and more noticeable. In 2021, 737 students entered, in 2022 the number dropped to 527 and this year there were only 445.
Las The most demanded careers were historically the Physical Education teacher training and the Nursing degree. The person in charge of the Admission and Permanence area, Melina Paoloni, said that in Nursing they had a more pronounced decrease than other careers (up to 50%) and she attributed it to the economic crisis, since it is an option that low-income students usually concentrate .
In any case, Paoloni said that other factors are also involved in the retraction of student demand. “We have seen a bottleneck that has to do with the accumulation of unpaid secondary school materials from the pandemic he explained. There are many boys who find it difficult to finish ”.
He Vice Chancellor of the Andean Zone UNRN, Diego Aguiar, said that in that house of studies there is no drop in enrollment compared to the historical average. Although the number was reduced this year in relation to 2022, he related it to the interest generated by the opening of Medicine, now partly appeased.
Aguiar pointed out that The 2023 registration in the UNRN for the 19 careers that it dictates in Bariloche was completed by 1,656 students and added El Bolsón reached 1,816. Last year there had been 2,086. The difference is given by Medicine, released in 2022 with 485 registered, which this year became 179.
According to the manager, the housing issue for students “is a serious problem” and the University registers “more consultations in El Bolsón than in Bariloche”. He said that in a certain way it is an issue that exceeds the UNRN, which does not have residences in any of its headquarters, since the focus is on investments for classroom and laboratory buildings. He thought that the province might contemplate the issue, with hostels for students from Rio Negro like “the ones that have or had” in Buenos Aires and in La Plata.
The Head of the Department of Student Life at UNRN, Irene Silin, said that the housing problem is “dramatic.” He stressed that in Bariloche there is no stable offer for students or a tradition of “pensions”, as occurs in other locations. He pointed out that there are even advanced students who gave up continuing their studies because they might not find accommodation. He remembered at least two cases, one of them a young man from Caleta Olivia.
noted that “boys and their families search a lot, unsuccessfully and the most common is that they end up staying in a hostelwith special agreements, until they begin to know each other and agree to rent among several”.
He President of the CRUB Student Center, Juan Lago Fernández, said that “until last year, 55 or 60%” of the students were from Barilochense and the rest came from other towns. But that proportion tends to change, because everyone (locals and foreigners) finds it increasingly difficult to move to study.
He said that the problem of rents “It is one of the main factors” that discourages registration and another is “economic labor.” He pointed out that students in some cases group together to rent or look for just a room or boarding room, generally through social networks. But the offer is meager and “there are also several cases of fraud.”
Melina Paoloni confirmed that the number of migrant students is decreasing, although they have not quantified it. “Several people from the South Line wrote to us and they tell us that they can’t get rentals,” assured. Some sign up in November or December to start a degree and only in February, on the eve of the start of classes, do they start looking for an apartment, but are unsuccessful and end up giving up. An average rent for two rooms does not fall below 100,000 pesos and even if two or more students get together to share expenses, it is difficult for them to sustain.
Those who live closer, for example in El Bolsón and La Angostura, end up staying in their homes and traveling as much as necessaryeven several times a week.
Paoloni said that the pandemic also left an oiled practice of virtual classes and it was quite difficult to return to face-to-face classes. “There are many inquiries regarding distance courses, but the University still does not have an offer of this type,” he claimed.
In addition to the institutional houses and the limited offer of scholarships available to the CRUB, there are non-governmental organizations with specific proposals for female students, for example OPJ (Orientation for the young) and the Methodist church. Although there are very few places.
Paoloni said that the University has also recorded a certain frustration and a “low participation” of students in collective proposals or in the search for solutions to common problems. He mentioned as an example that last year they launched a voluntary survey to find out the causes of dropout and “out of 500 students who received the form, only eight answered.”
Alonso said that the rental crisis, In addition to affecting the workers of Bariloche in general, it “undoubtedly has an impact” on the drop in university enrollment. He considered that the context of the city helps very little due to the lack of housing plans, fiscal stimulus for student locations and also “due to the extended tourist seasons” that reduce the permanent rental offer.
“We have seen a bottleneck in the accumulation of unpaid secondary school materials since the pandemic.”
Melina Paoloni, from the CRUB Income and Permanency area.
Exactly the same thing happens in tertiary
In it In the non-university tertiary field, there is also a drop in registrations related to the difficulty in finding accommodation. The Teacher Training Institute dictates four careers in this city, including the Philosophy teaching staff, which was created last year and did not have the expected impact.
The Training coordinator, José Giménez, said that they expected a higher enrollment this year, but “After the pandemic there was a decrease, which is not significant but forces us to pay attention.” He said that the Institute historically attracted a good number of students from the South Line, but now that influx is very thin.
“The students let us know that they can’t get rent,” Giménez assured. It is an issue that we transfer to the province and the municipality, because we do not have an answer ”.
He pointed out that it is a problem “pressing” that covers teachers and the entire population from Bariloche, since a basic rent does not fall below 80,000 or 100,000 pesos.
He said that, except for the Initial teachers, the enrollment fell between 20 and 30%.
In Philosophy they expected to start with regarding 40 students but they only managed to interest 20. “Many sign up and then don’t come. We don’t really know the reasons, but housing surely has to do with it,” he said. There are also those who stop studying for work reasons.
The actions that were faced and that did not give results
Another initiative that is in the pipeline is to build student residences with a national budget. Suitable land might be available on the CRUB property in the La Cumbre neighborhoodwhere a huge gym recently opened.
The dean Marcelo Alonso said that from the CRUB they began contacts with the municipality to evaluate some registry of houses, apartments and especially rooms “available to students”, so far without much result.
According to Alonso, another thing that was talked regarding on occasion is that the international fair that Bariloche aspires to organize, scheduled for 2027, leave buildings and dependencies which can then be converted into student accommodation. But they would be a medium-term variant.
UNRN Vice Chancellor Diego Aguiar also said that they are closely following a project approved last year by the Río Negro Legislature to facilitate the settlement of young people who must change location for study reasons, in homes of the elderly.
Its regarding “Live together” programwhich was presented by legislator María Grandoso (FdT) and was approved in the last session of the year.
As the author indicated at the time, the idea is promote “the coexistence and mutual collaboration of older adults and university students”, so that those who live alone or have plenty of space in their homes can accommodate students in exchange for “a collaboration with the expenses, help, accompaniment or the completion of certain tasks”, with a format “voluntary and non-profit”, and with monitoring by the State, as explained in the presentation.
- 445
- entrants this year has the University of Comahue in Bariloche, 45% less than in 2021.
- 1.816
- enrolled in the UNRN this year (Bariloche and El Bolsón) once morest 2,086 in 2022.
- 20%
- The registration of entrants to the careers offered by the Teacher Training Institute in Bariloche fell.
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