Who Gets a Student Apartment – and Why?

Housing, News / 1.9.2025

Have you ever wondered why you didn’t get a student apartment, even though you submitted your housing application well in advance?
Recently, there has been public discussion in the media about the criteria and scoring systems used for selecting tenants for student housing. Residents for state-funded student apartments are chosen based on assessed need, and for example, students relocating from other areas may be given priority. When assessing housing need, Soihtu considers the applicant household’s current living conditions and the urgency of improving them.

Resident selection is based on individual needs assessment

Most of the housing locations of Soihtu are state-subsidized rental apartments, and their tenant selection follows the guidelines set by VARKE (the Finnish authority for state-funded housing). The selection must be based on individual social and financial need. For student apartments, this means that priority is given to low-income students who do not currently have housing.

For Soihtu’s privately financed housing units (Soihtu Korttelikylä, Soihtu Vehkakuja, and the KLMNOP buildings in the Student Village), tenant selection follows the administrative regulations of the Student Union of the University of Jyväskylä (JYY) and the Finnish Equality Act.

Scoring helps identify suitable applicants

When processing applications, applicants are carefully scored based on the tenant selection guidelines. Scoring is mainly used because of the management system, which allows for detailed applicant comparison only through a scoring system. Scoring makes the offer process smoother by helping identify applicants with the most urgent housing needs.

According to JYY’s policy, its members are given priority in JYY-owned apartments. At Soihtu, applicants are scored from 1 to 10. The highest score is given to JYY members who do not have housing in Jyväskylä. Next in line are other students without housing. The lowest score is given to applicants who are not studying and already have housing in Jyväskylä. In between are students who are applying for a housing change or already have housing elsewhere in Jyväskylä. If an applicant’s situation changes, the score is updated based on the revised application.

If needed, the recipient of the apartment is chosen by lottery

It is common for multiple applicants to be in similar situations regarding housing need and income. Several applicants may not have housing in the city where they study and may lack the financial means to obtain housing from the private market. In tenant selection, study grants and housing subsidies are not considered as income.

According to VARKE, in such cases, priority can be determined by the date the application was submitted or by lottery, but the Equality Act must always be respected. At Soihtu, the apartment is offered to the applicant whose application was received first. During months with a high volume of applications, a lottery may also be used.