Students and rented accommodation
Data obtained from a recent Freedom of Information request found that more than 17,000 students are in a precarious situation when it comes to their housing. In fact, there has been a 16% rise in those facing housing debt and the number of evictions has doubled in the last year.
Given these statistics, it was no surprise that NASMA announced the theme of National Student Money Week 2018 was to be “WhereILive”. The theme was focused on encouraging students to think about the cost of renting, tenancy rights, utility bills and generally all things financial in relation to private rented accommodation.
The Money House Box Campaign
We created our first, ready-to-execute, student engagement campaign containing both digital and physical resources that we called the “Money House Box”. The aim of our campaign was to help Money Advisers around the country engage students during the National Student Money Week 2018.
We packed the box with posters, flyers, prizes and giveaways but at the heart of the package was a 5-day email bootcamp for students. The Housing Bootcamp delivered essential knowledge and tips around contracts, splitting bills, house sharing, and tenancy rights directly to student inboxes, daily.
The impact
24 institutions got involved and over 2,000 students signed up to the bootcamp; 70% found the bootcamp useful or very useful, and 74% said they were either very or extremely likely to recommend the bootcamp to a friend.
We were thrilled about the number of students that participated. As educators we understand that quality and efficacy are critical to impactful learning, so we were delighted to see how much was learned:
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61% now understand their rights as tenants
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53% gained actionable tips regarding house sharing
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44% learned new ways of splitting bills using tech
If you are interested in viewing the full summary of this campaign, please click here.
