New Delhi: For thousands of students coming to Delhi University from outside the city, securing admission does not necessarily mean securing a place to stay.Only a handful of colleges have hostels and admission into them is harder than getting into university to begin with.The gap has fuelled a thriving private PG economy around college clusters. The shortage is not new. In a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question in Nov 2016, Union human resource development ministry, citing DU, said the university had 19 hostels with a combined capacity of 3,580 students. Including accommodation provided by some colleges, estimates put hostel availability at 6,000 seats, while DU admitted at least 60,000 students annually.A decade later, the gap remains substantial. In 2026, DU has 91 colleges, with 69 colleges and departments participating in undergraduate admissions. Around 71,600 new UG students were admitted in 2026-27, while about half of DU students are from outside Delhi, as per college estimates. Against this, there are around 7,000 hostel seats. The university has 20 main hostels across its North and South campuses, while 20 colleges have hostel facilities and 71 do not, according to officials.The numbers become starker against DU’s overall student population. Its 2024-25 annual report, the latest available on its website, records 2.1 lakh undergraduate students and 34,520 postgraduate students, including PhD scholars — nearly 2.5 lakh in all.Miranda House, for example, has an overall student strength of 5,375, but its hostel accomodates only about 370 students. For 2026-27, the college has offered just 90 hostel seats to first-year students. Sri Venkateswara College, with an overall student strength of around 4,600, has hostel capacity for 150 students, with just 50 seats available to first-year students.Residence has, in fact, figured in DU’s governing framework since its early years. Section 33 of Delhi University Act, 1922, says every student, other than one studying through correspondence, “shall reside in a college or a hall, or under such conditions as may be prescribed by the ordinances”. A university official, however, said the provision “in today’s times should not be read as a guarantee of a university hostel room to every student”.For students arriving from another state, an admission confirmation can therefore mark the beginning of another search for somewhere to live. Limited hostel seats leave many turning to PGs, private hostels and rented flats in areas such as Vijay Nagar and Malka Ganj, near North Campus, and Satya Niketan, near South Campus.Students say the private market can mean paying more for cramped and poorly maintained accommodation. “There should be more hostels for students. Outside, everything is expensive and not maintained. I don’t know where students are supposed to go,” a DU student said.Reliance on private housing is not unique to Delhi. What differs in some university systems abroad is the support provided to students navigating the private rental market.Indroneil B Biswas, who studied in Oregon in the US, recalled that a department administrator contacted him even before his arrival about applying for campus accommodation with another international student. “The admins helped us navigate on-campus housing,” he said, though accommodation was not automatic. Universities there also provide off-campus housing listings, information on tenants’ rights and, in some cases, access to student legal services for housing disputes.In Manchester in the UK, Manchester Student Homes, a university-run service, helps students navigate private accommodation through listings and an accreditation scheme requiring participating landlords and agents to follow a Code of Standards. It also offers housing advice and assistance with disputes. In Australia, universities, including University of Melbourne, similarly provide off-campus housing platforms and guidance on the private rental market, including students’ rights and responsibilities as tenants.
