Nazmush Shahadat had nowhere to stay in London when he arrived from Bangladesh.
He had been accepted to study law, but university housing was costly, and he could not find a place to live, he told BBC.
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He said things "turned dark really soon" and he found himself sharing a two-bedroom home with 20 other men.
"I never expected to live in a place like that — I still have my scars," he said.
He stated it was hard to sleep with many bunk beds crowded into a room with shift workers coming and leaving, and he got bitten by bed bugs.
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"The first couple of months, I couldn't video call my family because I didn't want them to see how I am living," Shahadat said.
Shahadat currently lives in a shared house and has his own room, but he says finding a reasonably priced property in London is exceedingly difficult since international students lack the necessary references and pay stubs.
Many have also used their family's money to finance tuition, with his totaling £39,000 for a three-year program.
"I've spent my family's savings to come here to fulfill my and my parents' dreams," he said.
The UK government has sought in recent years to boost the number of overseas students at higher education institutions.
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There were 113,015 international students in London during the 2015/16 academic year. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), this figure has risen by 59 percent to 179,425 for 2020/21, said the BBC report.
Some London institutions now have more international students than UK students.
"Universities are trying to recruit more and more international students partly because they pay a lot higher fees, but it means that some universities are expanding at a rate much higher than the local housing stock can deal with,” said Nehaal Bajwa, from the National Union of Students (NUS).
The NUS has advocated for rent limits for students, claiming that international students are especially vulnerable to financial hardship.
"You're kind of open to exploitation because you don't know your rights," Bajwa said.
She went on to say that international students in were more likely to accept a house without a contract, pay huge sums of money upfront, or be compelled to accept inappropriate circumstances. "You might be more tempted, because otherwise where are you going to live? So homelessness is a real threat," she said.