Homeownership

Anabel Costa-Ferreira Comment Editor

WHILE Exeter students continue to see the extortionately priced commerce of TP Wednesday tickets, Overheard has welcomed a new common post: the desperate plea to sell a ski ticket. The most upper middle-class issue faced in this cost-of-living crisis, said students are calling to swap the slopes for ways to fund their post-club cheesy chip habit.

This year’s infamous trip offers around 1100 students the opportunity to gracelessly fall down the ski runs of Les Deux Alpes, a resort in Vénosc, France. Priced at a base of £419 (equivalent to approximately 46.55 venoms at time of writing), this includes self-catered accommodation for seven nights, as well as full area lift pass and a trip tee that will soon be sported around campus. As students repeat their trusted pesto pasta meal to save money until then, the Easter holidays cannot come around fast enough.

Exeposé interviewed one disgruntled parent, who wished to remain anonymous, but insisted that, as the daughter of a Baron, her title ‘The Honourable’ be acknowledged. “It’s atrocious really,” The Honourable said. “There’s nowhere for us to stay in Exeter, all of the options have been removed, there’s not even a room going spare. The decision to have to stay at our holiday let in St Agnes and commute for the best part of two hours was a devastating one to make. We’re losing a week of prime holiday rental income, and the English Riviera summer traffic will be absolutely dire — we’ll have to forgo our morning surf if we want to make the ceremony”. Many permanent Cornish residents are generally opposed to the increasing number of second homes that sit vacant for 50 weeks of the year, while thousands of locals remain on the council housing register. In spite of this, it is expected that many Cornish people will feel proud that their county is offering refuge to those suddenly in need of a roof over their head, and the relaxing water of a heated indoor swimming pool under their feet.

Further investigation from Exeposé discovered pleas from students on Overheard for people to pity their overdrafts and even as far as to take their entire Snowsports membership. In a refreshing sense of honesty, one post simply stated, “I need money for alcohol,”— it is clear that scrambling to find cups at TP is proving an ever-tricky business endeavour. Certain Overheard entrepreneurs have discovered another moneysaving hack by attempting to swap their Upgraded rooms back to a Standard.

The ski trip ticket economy has so disrupted the UK economy that it has had a direct impact on the price of home ownership. Already a novel daydream for many young people, the Housing Commission has now announced that the average mortgage cost has risen to “three slices of avocado toast and a ski ticket”. For most students, their next trip to the Alps will be whenever Windows decide to change the desktop display to a snowy mountain. For this year at least, an Après-ski themed social will have to suffice.