A new joint report published by Global Student Living and the Unite Foundation draws on data from nearly 45,000 students to examine how care-experienced and estranged students navigate the accommodation journey – and what the sector needs to do differently.
For most students, moving into university accommodation is a rite of passage – stressful, exciting, and ultimately manageable. For care-experienced and estranged students, the stakes are considerably higher. Without family support networks, familiar safety nets or, in many cases, anywhere else to go during the holidays, accommodation is more important. It is not just a place to live – it provides the foundation of safety, stability and belonging.
No Place Like Home?, the new joint report from Global Student Living and the Unite Foundation, brings that reality into sharp focus. Drawing on GSL Index responses from 44,894 students across the UK and Ireland – including 663 care-experienced and 1,003 estranged domestic students – it is one of the most detailed examinations to date of how these students experience the accommodation system from search through to settling in.
A more complex vulnerability profile
The report confirms what many in the sector have long suspected but rarely had data to demonstrate – care-experienced and estranged students are disproportionately likely to carry multiple, overlapping vulnerabilities. They are more likely than the average home student to identify as LGBTQIA+, to belong to an ethnic minority, to live with a disability, or to be neurodivergent.
Attitudinally, both groups also stand apart. They report greater difficulties with motivation, budgeting, and managing commitments, as well as a stronger preference for quieter, lower-intensity social environments. These factors directly shape the type of accommodation these students seek and the type of experiences they are likely to have once they arrive.
Choice – or the absence of it
Where home students typically weigh up location, cost, and social environment when selecting accommodation, care-experienced and estranged students are more likely to report having had no meaningful choice at all. Limited availability, late applications driven by instability, and the need for specific features – accessible facilities, pet-friendly policies, parking, or mental health-related requirements – all narrow options considerably.
Financial independence plays a significant role here, too. While 42% of home students rely on parents or guardians to fund their accommodation, that figure drops to 20% among care-experienced students and just 10% among estranged students. Both groups lean heavily on student loans, bursaries, and employment income –
a precariousness that compounds at every stage of the housing journey.
Moving-in: where it goes wrong
One of the report’s clearest findings is that the most acute gaps do not emerge in the middle of the academic year – they emerge before students have even unpacked. While booking satisfaction is broadly in line with the national average, both care-experienced and estranged students rate the overall move-in experience significantly lower.
Care-experienced students give notably lower scores for arrival information and welcome events. Estranged students report feeling less welcomed by their peers. These are moments that set the tone for an entire year – and for students who may have experienced repeated disruptions to their sense of home, a poor start carries particular weight.
The report highlights that clearer, more personalised arrival communications, flexible move-in windows, and assisted arrival options shouldn’t be considered enhanced services. For this group of students, they can influence whether a student settles in or not.
Wellbeing: a significant gap
Using the MHI-5 mental health measure, both care-experienced and estranged students score well below the domestic average. Both groups are also significantly more likely to say their accommodation has a negative impact on their wellbeing – a particularly troubling finding given that student accommodation is often positioned as a supportive and community-building environment.
The most frequently reported struggles include:
- depression and other mental health challenges;
- financial insecurity;
- loneliness and difficulty making friends;
- conflict within accommodation; and
- alcohol or substance misuse.
For estranged students, financial precarity is a major concern – 59% cite having enough money to get by as their primary struggle, compared with 33% of the broader student population.
Social connection: wanting in, but facing barriers
Despite wanting to participate in extracurricular activities, both groups face significant personal barriers – anxiety, low confidence, and financial pressure among them. Estranged students are particularly likely to describe themselves as ‘just at university to study’, a framing that reflects both circumstance and mindset.
Social conflict is also elevated: over a quarter of students in both groups report regular conflict within their accommodation, around ten percentage points higher than the average. Yet the appetite for connection remains. The challenge for providers is creating opportunities that are genuinely accessible, not just nominally available.
Retention risk
Perhaps the most urgent finding in the report concerns retention. Around one in three care-experienced and estranged students have seriously considered dropping out of university – nearly double the national average of 19%. However, our experience shows that a positive accommodation experience serves as a vital buffer; students who have a positive one are less likely to abandon their studies. Ultimately, secure accommodation isn’t just about a roof – it is a cornerstone of student retention and for care-experienced and estranged students, a key to stability.
There is a counterpoint, too: care-experienced and estranged students are almost twice as likely as average to plan to stay in their current accommodation for another year. Stability, when found, is valued and held on to. The challenge is making it accessible and a positive experience from the start.
What needs to change
No Place Like Home? sets out a clear direction of travel for universities and accommodation providers. The recommendations are concrete, practical, and crucially, largely achievable without large-scale structural change.
Dedicated, trauma-informed arrival processes – assisted arrival channels, early check-in options, closer coordination with university named contacts – address the most acute gaps at the most critical moment. Beyond move-in, the report calls for flexible payment plans, hardship support, year-round accommodation guarantees, and personalised housing plans that reflect the specific circumstances of care-experienced and estranged students.
The Unite Foundation’s Blueprint and GSL’s own Closing the Gap report (published with CUBO in 2024) already provide practical models of what targeted support can look like. No Place Like Home? builds on that foundation with the largest dataset yet assembled on this population’s accommodation experience.
Read the full report to explore the findings in depth.
