Jacuzzis, juice bars and Gen Z: Inside India's new-age luxury student housing boom

Picture this: You step out of the airport and into the open doors of a chauffeured car. You are driven to a sleek building in an upscale neighbourhood, where staff greet you with a cool drink as the manager checks you in. You are shown your room, wallpapered, wainscoted and well provisioned, and introduced to the amenities: a rooftop pool, gym, community lounge, reading and dining rooms.

A run-through of weekend activities follows: coffee parties by the pool, Pilates sessions, barbeques. "And here's the call button for the concierge," smiles the manager.

Driven by competition and shifting Gen Z aspirations, the student hostel has had a glow-up.

"These are nothing like your conventional hostels and PGs," says Rohan Gupta, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Colstay Ltd, which owns the luxury student residence brand Aurus and Hive Hostels, a mid-range variant. The hostel described above is Aurus Chapter 1 in Vile Parle, a 275-bed facility for female students, run by a staff of 75.

"We launched Aurus two years ago when our students at Hive wanted a more elevated experience. We now have four of these properties in Mumbai - two for girls and two for boys - and plan to launch in Ahmedabad, Noida and Pune next year."

Premium residences are the newest segment in student housing, with monthly rentals starting at Rs 50,000 for a single bed in a triple-occupancy room, along with a three-month deposit.

Living it up

Student hostels today offer conveniences that, until a decade ago, were associated mainly with overseas campuses, including professional housekeeping and laundry services, AC rooms, snack vending machines, lounges, pickleball courts, swimming pools, jacuzzis, community events, college drop-offs and doctors on call. There is usually a property manager to deal with everything from a broken bolt to glitchy WiFi.

"Everything's included in the rent," says Gaurav Bhathena, director of Student Housing India Ltd, a company his father Kamlesh Bhathena founded in 2015 with just 20 beds and few frills, in Juhu. Today, the company operates more than 1,100 beds across 15 facilities, complete with its own pools and pickleball courts. Depending on the neighbourhood and room configuration, annual rentals range from Rs 5 to 7 lakh.

Upscale hostels are also appearing in emerging education hubs such as Jaipur, Vizag, Noida, Ahmedabad and Dehradun. According to the All India Survey on Higher Education 2021-22, student enrolment rose 4.6% from the previous year to nearly 4.3 crore. Meanwhile, the Economic Survey 2024-25 reported a 13.8% increase in higher education institutions between 2014-15 and 2022-23. On-campus housing, however, has not expanded at the same pace.

The India Brand Equity Foundation estimates an 80% gap between on-campus housing capacity and the student population, a shortfall the private student housing market aims to bridge. Valued at Rs 6,822 crore by 2030, the sector is positioning itself as a crucial extension of campus infrastructure.

It's a win-win for both companies and colleges, says Shivansh Gambhir, marketing manager at Delhi-based Communezen Ventures, which runs Uniliv, a premium student housing brand, and Huddle Stays, a more affordable one.

A sound investment

The rapid growth of the sector has drawn investor attention. Hive Hostels, which plans to launch its IPO soon, is valued at $35 million after securing seed funding of $1.15 million from Anchorage Capital Group earlier this year. Communezen Ventures raised $2.78 million in its latest funding round through a combination of equity and debt.

Developers are also looking to strike deals. "Some of them prefer a rental portfolio to selling because they want to hold onto their inventory, perhaps to retain it as a family asset," says Mayank Bajaj, founder of The Livlit, a co-living company where students, interns and working professionals cohabit. "When a builder leases their property to a student housing or co-living space, they earn a 6-7% rental and 5-7% capital appreciation every five years. The average yield is a comfortable 13%."

Today, many student housing companies are also acquiring land themselves and constructing built-for-purpose properties with compact rooms and large common areas.

There's nothing basic about the student housing business today; the brief is simple: floor 'em.

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