With applications for the first phase of the national higher education entrance exam running until 4 August, there are many factors that influence the choice of future university students in Portugal. And while in the past, the educational institution itself was the main may consideration, now the university's location and rental prices may take priority.
Private housing prices in Portugal have been rising in recent years, making access to higher education more difficult. According to the latest Student Accommodation report published earlier this month, quoted by Público, the average price per room is €415/month.
This is the first year that the average price of rooms in Portugal has been above €400, since 2021,when the data first started to be collated.
According to the report, which collected data from public sources of information, namely real estate portals and industry agency websites, and aggregated data from more than 20 different platforms, 6,884 rooms were identified for rent across the country. Last year's analysis, in July 2024, indicated that there were 5,684 rooms available, with the average price at the time being €397/month.
"It's with great concern that we look at these figures, because the increase in supply isn't bringing prices down and that's why we insist so much on the importance of having a stock of public housing," said the president of the Lisbon Academic Federation (FAL), Pedro Neto Monteiro, quoted by Público.
Which cities have the most expensive rooms?
Among the main university cities, the capital, Lisbon, has the highest room rents in the private sector, with an average price of €500. In the Lisbon district, rents can even reach €714. This is followed by Porto with an average price of €400, Braga with €323 and then Coimbra, where student rooms cost an average of €280.
The cities where private room rentals are lowest, taking into account the number of properties available for student accommodation, are Guarda with an average price of €180, and Bragança and Castelo Branco at €200.
It should be noted that over the last 12 months, the variation in room prices was 4.6% in Lisbon, 4.1% in Porto, 1.1% in Braga and 4.4% in Coimbra. The cities with the biggest price variations were Ponta Delgada (50.5%) and Funchal (26%), even though they have a small number of rooms available.
In addition to unaffordable rents, the private market is marked by illegal practices, with landlords refusing to issue receipts, preventing students from accessing state aid to share accommodation costs.
There has been a growing debate around prioritising student accommodation in Portugal, with the government promising more than 15,000 new beds by 2026. The National Plan for Accommodation in Higher Education (PNAES) estimates that public student residences currently have a maximum capacity of 16,571 beds.
In April of this year, the president of the National Monitoring Committee for the Recovery and Resilience Programme (PRR), which funds the PNAES, revealed that an additional 4,000 beds were expected in student accommodation by the end of September.
The public residences that have been built consist mainly of twin rooms, which is not so attractive for young students.
"I was recently in a new residence where the rooms, for two people, were nine square metres, with beds 60 or 70 centimetres apart, and many students don't want to be in a monastic cell-type room, where they almost sleep hand in hand with a stranger," said Manuel Matos, a professor at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL), a school of the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa (IPL), quoted by Público.
"As a result, we have public residences, sometimes with vacancies, because the price they charge for non-scholarship holders is not attractive. This is the case with residences with twin rooms, where the monthly fee for each bed is close to €200. That's not a low price for a bed."
115,000 displaced students in the 2023/2024 academic year
Although this year's figures are not yet available, in the 2023/2024 academic year there were around 115,000 displaced students in public education, around a third of all students in higher education. Tuition fees in public student accommodation are, on average, lower than room rents in the private sector, ranging from less than €100 to €400 per room.
Higher education students in Portugal who have moved for their studies - whether on a scholarship or not - that are unable to find a place in a public residence can apply for supplementary accommodation, the amount of which varies according to family income and the location of the educational institution.
Scholarship holders who haven't found a place in a public student residence can receive support of up to €483 per month in Lisbon, Oeiras and Cascais. Displaced students who don't have a scholarship and have a per capita family income below 28 IAS on the Social Support Index can receive aid equivalent to 50% of the amount paid to scholarship holders.
