By Eero Piimies, Associate Editor of Ylioppilaslehti of Finland.

One of the most important objectives of international and national student policy Is to uplift the social conditions prevailing In the student world. In those countries where the potential of student activity is not used up in lighting for various liberties, aspirations for social betterment make up the principal part of the programme. Finland long ago passed the stage of fighting for liberties, but still unsolved in our country are a large number of problems affecting students, among which the shortage of housing is one of the most acute and timely issues.

Nearly all the university towns in Europe are experiencing the familiar phenomenon of housing shortage, especially at the undergraduate level, and in Finland there are additional reasons for this: matriculated students have enrolled in institutions located in the two largest cities in the country; the need of post-war reconstruction; steady migration of people from rural areas into the cities. The grievous lack of room for students immediately after the war forced students to enter into a bold undertaking on their own—building low-cost dormitories for themselves. However, even now, only about fifteen per cent of the student population live in cheap dormitories. In Helsinki, where the total enrolment of the University and other various institutions of higher learning is approximately 16,000 and constitutes the largest student community in Finland, the fourteen dormitory buildings erected can house only about 2,000 students. Others must live at home, with relatives or in rented rooms which vary considerably in quality. Married students have the greatest difficulties finding living quarters in this capital city.

Problems of Collective Living

The lodging standard and habits of university students are by no means the same as those of the ordinary citizen. Collective living is liable to produce considerable adjustment difficulties unless they are dealt with in advance. Although, considered in a body, students may present a mass picture, nevertheless each student much be treated separately as an individual. Excessively large dormitory buildings and, above all, excessively large rooms would collect too many different individuals under the same roof, but excessively small dormitory buildings might harmfully isolate individuals from their environment and from other people too much. Thus the Finnish student dormitories have been so designed to have mostly double rooms. More mature students have the opportunity of enjoying the peace and quiet of a single room, a valuable asset while studying for final examinations. There are very few rooms for three tenants.

Student dormitories are erected, as far as possible, in the close vicinity of institutions of learning and reasonably near various art, recreation and amusement establishments. Certain of the dormitory buildings afford opportunities for participation in various activities like sports, games, developing photographic negatives and making prints, etc.

All the large dormitory buildings have a restaurant of their own and, moreover, it is possible for one to cook tea, coffee and small meals for oneself in them. The smaller dormitories generally have a kitchen which the tenants are at liberty to occupy and use according to their needs. Many of the buildings have central radio and telephone outlets connected in each room or floor, and some television receiving sets have started to make their appearance. Thus many of the students feel more at home in their dormitories than even in their own homes.

The first of the student dormitory buildings, the Domus Academica, owned by the Students' Union of the University of Helsinki, was ready for occupancy in 1950. The complex, which is situated some two kilometres away from the University, consists of three buildings, each seven storeys high, which accommodates 600 tenants. There is a long corridor on each floor, lined on both sides with rooms as well as the necessary sanitation faculties and other conveniences. Each storey also has a common living room and one of the buildings has a tennis court, another a sauna steambath, and the third a restaurant. In the immediate vicinity is the new library building belonging to the Students' Union, containing over 150,000 volumes.

The Dorm at Tech Town

The largest and in many respects the most interesting of the dormitory centres in the Helsinki area is Tech Town, a self-sufficient housing development for 700, engineered by the students of the Institute of Technology. Located on a headbus from the Institute and has its own communication lines to the city as well as various facilities for recreation and amusement. In addition to its large independently situated restaurant, it boasts a chapel, a monumental sports hall, a postal, telephone and radio centre, and a log sauna by the shore. The architectural units of which the Town is composed are known as "cells," consisting of four or five single or double rooms, a kitchen, shower-room and living room. The cells form towers in which there are still even more common rooms reserved for different purposes. Tech Town is wholly self-governing: its executive board maintains order and discipline as well as arranging many sorts of functions to gladden the hearts of the tenants.

Among the other major dormitories in Helsinki are the one owned by the Satakunta Student Corporation near the centre of the city, the ones owned by the Students' Union of the Institute of Commerce and Business Administration, as well as the Agrarian Village, occupied by students of agriculture and forestry, a short distance past city limits.

All the aforementioned dormitories are kept open during the summer when they are run as international student hostels.

Facilities at Turku

Turku is the second largest seat of learning in Finland and, accordingly, the students of Turku have built for themselves their own modern dormitories. The building of the Students' Union of Turku University, accommodating 380 tenants. closely resembles, in respect to principle, the Domus Academica in Helsinki. The Turkuites have, in addition, a dancehall which, it goes without saying, is quite a popular place. The Students' Union of the Swedish University in Turku, the Abo Akademi, also has a dormitory which accommodates 111 students. A foreign student visiting Turku in the summer time has a good chance of landing a room In one or the other of these dormitories.

Jyvaskyla boasts an Institute of Pedagogics, the 160 place dormitory of which offers the cheapest accommodations in the country. It is divided into two sections, one for men and the other for women. The distance to the school is about 30 paces, and considering that the restaurant is situated in the same building, with an indoor swimming pool a stone's throw away, the future educators of the country have no cause for complaint.

Next autumn, the Teachers' College of Oulu will be transformed into a university and in time it will doubtless provide sufficient living space, but even at present the existing dormitory can put up 100 students.

The College of Social Science, which is now spending its final period in Helsinki, is soon going to move to Tampere, the great industrial city of the Finnish interior, and present plans call for reserving space for accommodating students. The dormitory itself will represent the most ultramodern design in this sphere of architecture.

The Finnish student dormitory has gained tremendous favour in student circles, and the number of applicants for admission as tenants always exceeds the available space. Although collective living quarters have features all students cannot stomach, occupancy is quite voluntary, and therefore such disadvantages do not have appreciable effects.

It is hoped that the reader does not think that Finnish students are one hundred per cent satisfied with their present living conditions. This is naturally not the case. Much work remains to be done in order to open to all who desire it an opportunity to cut study costs by living cheaply and well.