University College Dublin has the State’s most expensive on-campus room again in 2025/26 as students face waiting lists in many places amid the annual rush to secure accommodation.
An en suite room in Village 3, located on the college’s Belfield campus, costs €11,888 for the academic year. This is an increase of €124 on last year, or just more than 1 per cent.
The cheapest on-campus option at UCD is a shared bedroom in Village 1 at €5,722 for the academic year.
Phase one of the UCD Village complex was completed in 2021 and comprises more than 900 units.
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While the entire scheme was due to deliver more than 3,000 units, the second and third phases were shelved in 2022 due to rising construction costs.
A letter sent by then UCD president to the minister for higher education in 2022 said the project was “not viable” and could not go ahead as planned due to “increased construction costs and constraints on further rent increases”.
Rent pressure zone rules, which now extend across the entire country and apply to student-specific accommodation, mean rents cannot be increased by more than 2 per cent per year or by the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
In June Minister for Housing James Browne approved changes to apartment standards to address viability issues, decreasing the minimum size and number of windows required in each block.
Despite these measures, current students of UCD continue to struggle, with the students’ union there starting a food bank this coming year.
“What we find is that students don’t tend to drop out, but instead they impoverish themselves to continue their degree,” said UCD students’ union president Michael Roche.
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The food bank is “a really sad step to have to take”, he said, but “we’re just trying to meet people where they’re at”.
He said the college is a “victim of being located in D4, one of the most expensive places in the State”.
“The campus can often feel ‘pay to play’, and a lot of student life and student experience, which is a large part of college, is often reserved for those who actually afford to live on campus. So a lot of people feel locked out of that experience,” said Mr Roche.
The university with the second highest top-end campus accommodation cost is Trinity College Dublin, with prices starting at €6,066 and rising to €10,085.
Dublin City University charges between €6,035 and €6,872, while TU Dublin does not have any on-campus student accommodation.
The highest-priced on-campus accommodation outside Dublin is at University College Cork, with prices ranging from €3,816 to €8,585.
The cheapest on-campus accommodation across the State is at University of Galway, which charges between €3,258 and €7,925.
Maynooth charges between €4,668 and €6,353, while the University of Limerick charges between €5,416 and €7,905.
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On-campus accommodation at these universities, bar Maynooth University, was fully booked at the time of writing, with waiting lists in operation.
University College Dublin did not respond to say whether its accommodation was fully booked.
Many of the universities mentioned have started leaflet campaigns seeking private rental accommodation from local homeowners and alumni.
Several pointed to off-campus options available through the StudentPad accommodation portal on their university websites, which lists suitable accommodation on the private rental market.
