Paying more for luxury than education

Dec 10, 2006

The advent of private sponsorship at Makerere University and Makerere Business School has seen a rise in students’ hostel facilities. From the small modest hostels of the late 1990s, the story today is a tale of luxuries and cutthroat competition amongst hostel owners to draw students to their ult

By Joseph Kariuki

The advent of private sponsorship at Makerere University and Makerere Business School has seen a rise in students’ hostel facilities. From the small modest hostels of the late 1990s, the story today is a tale of luxuries and cutthroat competition amongst hostel owners to draw students to their ultra-modern facilities.

Gone are the days when one could easily walk to any hostel with sh100,000 and get a comfortable room. Today, students want to live in single self-contained rooms.

This has led many developers to come up with new designs of hostels that many may mistake for hotels. In Wandegeya, Akamwesi, Kiwamirembe and Braetd hostels are an example of how comfort has become the sole determinant of where to stay. Tiled floors and large windows with glass doors is the new trend in the hostel design which has ended up giving more students the urge to stay in such beautiful but expensive hostels.

Students are judged by their peers on which hostels they stay and the fancier the hostel, the more respect they earn from their peers, some of the students said.

The owners are taking advantage of the high demand for funky hostels to hike the hostel fees. Its common practice for hostel owners to charge sh500,000 in the first semester and charge sh600,000 the second semester. This has led many students to use part of their tuition fees to settle the balance.

A walk into a room in the hostels is like walking into one of the luxury suites in a five star hotel.

Though hostels only offer a room with a bed, the students lavishly furnish them with woollen carpets, home theatres, computers and television sets.

At Akamwesi, Braetd and Kiwamirembe hostels both in Wandegeya, a single self-contained room goes for sh 800,000 per semester. This translates to sh200,000 a month, an amount that can pay accommodation for a whole semester at a less lavish hostel.

The most expensive hostel in town is a hostel in Nakawa, which charges sh1.2m for a self-contained single room, and sh600,000 for a double room.

The hostel fees in some hostels are twice as much as the tuition fees some students pay. Tuition fees for Mass Communication, the most expensive course at the Faculty of Arts, is sh700,000 per semester, but some of the students pay sh800,000 for a room in some hostels.

A resident of one of the most luxurious hostels, Akamwesi, said her hostel is the cleanest around campus and the building is beautiful. She cannot imagine staying in another hostel.

“I can only shift from this hostel if a fancier hostel comes up,” she said.

At sh800,000 a semester, she is guaranteed a bus to transport her to and from campus, satellite television in a well furnished common room, a stand by generator, reading rooms and a modern kitchen.

Other services offered by the hostel include a shopping arcade which has a cyber café, a video library, salons, a clinic, a restaurant and a supermarket.

At the same hostel, there are suites that go for sh1.4m per semester, which are also fully occupied. These suites are more spacious and have larger balconies. The cost of these suites can pay tuition fees for two Mass Communication students.

Many hostel managers say their services are worth the fees. Moreso, they say the students don’t mind meeting the costs for such comfort. Most students who come from poor families and stay in such hostels due to peer pressure, have ended up dropping out of campus for failure to pay tution fees.

Apart from Land Mark Hostel in Nakawa, which allows students to pay in installments, students are expected to clear the their dues before entering their rooms.

Most hostels which charge a reasonable sh400,000 per semester often lack the most sought-after services like transport and DStv. Some of these hostels are far from campus and students do not want to rent them.

Research has shown that many of the low-cost hostels were deserted by students seeking comfortable life at the expensive ones. This was because they are small and don’t offer the much-wanted services like DStv.

Efforts to pressurise the university to negotiate the charges at the hostels by the students’ Guild have often failed. This is because the hostels are private enterprises although they are one of the factors that lead to delay in payment of tution fees.

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