Many students have become “smart consumers” when they
decide to move to the suburbs, when the room rents have been escalating in the
“price storm”.

Students have to move to suburbs to cut down expenses on rooms

“Everything is getting more and more expensive, from room rents to vegetables
and cooking which is unaffordable for provincial students like us. We have cut down
expenses on food, and now we have decided to move to the suburbs to cut down
expenses on rooms,” said Ha, a student of the Hanoi University for Education.

Ha is not alone. Many other students, who are struggling to survive and keep
studying in big cities, also say they are considering moving to the suburbs, or
to the provinces, contiguous to Hanoi, to rent rooms.

The problem now is that the room rentals have become unbearable to them, and
they have to seek the rooms with the lower rents to save money, even though they
have to travel tens of kilometres every day to school

Five years ago, students refused to rent the rooms in the districts of Dong Anh,
Gia Lam or Soc Son. However, the areas have become the favorite destinations of
many students, because the room rents here are reasonable, while the living
costs are much lower than that in the inner city.

A 10 square metre room in Kim Chung, Hai Boi and Dai Mach communes in Dong Anh
District, which is more than 10 kilometres far from the center of the city, now
can be leased at 500,000 dong. Meanwhile, a smaller room would be rent for
400,000 dong.

The rents are lower in other areas in Soc Son district, because the areas are
farer from the inner city, about 200-300,000 dong a month. Especially, the
prices of vegetables and food are also cheaper by 50 percent than the prices in
the city, which can students make more nutritious meals.

Le Van Tuan, a second year student of the University of Transport, now lives in
a rent room in Soc Son district, which is 30 kilometres far from the school.
However, he said he is satisfactory with the room, because the rent is low at
just 300,000 dong a month. It is not a big problem to travel everyday to school,
because he can take buses there.

Tuan related that previously, he stayed in a room in Cau Giay district, and he
had to pay 1.7 million dong a month for the room rent, and additional money for
electricity, water, security fee, about two million dong in total. Though Tuan
shared the room with two other friends, the expenses was still unaffordable for
him.

Le Tran Anh, a student of the Industry University in Tu Liem district, now rents
a room in Van Giang town in Hung Yen province. Anh feels tired when everyday, he
has to wait at different bus stations every day to take buses and go on
different routes to the school. However, Anh said he has no other choice.

“The time I spend every day on buses is even bigger than the time I spend on
lecture halls,” he said. “At first, I felt terrible, but I have got used to the
long travel every day”.

Anh said that at first, he was too demanding and he shared a room at Mai Dich
residential quarter with a friend which had the room rent of 1.5 million dong.
The room rent alone cost him 750,000 dong, while his parents can give 2 million
dong a month. As a result, after paying the room rent, he did not have enough
money for meals and other expenses.

Analysts have also talked about the movement “of migrating to suburb areas”.
This has caused a new problem that buses have become always overloaded. The
buses on the route No 15 from Long Bien district to Pho Ni, the route No 39 from
the Underground water station to Nghia Do Park, the route No 46 from My Dinh
residential quarter to Co Loa have always full of passengers. Students complain
that they always have to wait for a long time to catch buses.

Source: Dai doan ket