Emma Harden-Wolfson

The cost of living crisis is the number one concern for Gen Zs and millennials who make up most of today’s students. Rising costs and inflation around the world are leading to alarming levels of housing and food insecurity and anxiety among students.

The briefest of searches provides examples from Canada, Japan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, South Africa… and this list could go on. Cost concerns are also deterring potential international students from going abroad.

Central Asia, like elsewhere, is not immune from this global trend. It’s often framed differently – not so much around the crisis narrative that pervades in Europe/North America – but with a less rhetorical emphasis on the cost of specific items (e.g., gasoline in Tajikistan). That’s when the issue is raised publicly in the first place.

In this context, it was slightly surprising to see a new announcement from Uzbekistan that students will be provided financial support to help offset the cost of housing. Surprising because it’s an implicit admission that there is a cost of living problem, particularly in the capital Tashkent, and that this does impact students’ wellbeing and ability to study.

It’s a very welcome surprise, though – and not a surprise at all if you’ve been following the scale and scope of recent youth-focussed and higher education reforms in the country, many of which are geared around expanding access and increasing equality (see here and here for two of my recent-ish posts, and look out for a book chapter I’ve got coming out in 2026).

The super-informative name of the new arrangement – ‘Coverage of part of the monthly rent for students of public higher education institutions’ – gives you a good idea of its aim. Students at state HEIs in Tashkent living in rented accommodation will be eligible for an amount equivalent to one Base Calculation Value and students in regions outside Tashkent will receive half that amount. Currently, that’s worth 412,000 or 206,000 som (US$34/$17) per month.

In Tashkent, the cost of rented accommodation varies depending on where in the city you live and whether you live alone or with others, but let’s say 3 million som (US$250) a month as the average cost of a 1-bed apartment in a reasonable area. Under the new policy, that cost reduces by almost 14%. If you were sharing an apartment, you might only be paying 1.5 million som (US$125) so now that price drops by 27%. Either way, this is a good amount to save.

The government has explained the rationale for this as easing the costs youth need to pay for housing, thereby lightening their financial burden. It’s also worth bearing in mind that rented accommodation is significantly more expensive than dorms, where you may only pay 2.5-4 million som per year.

A neat touch to the program is that students won’t have to complete reams of paperwork to be eligible. Using the centralized government portal, students fill in a form and that’s it. No supporting documents needed (apparently the information provided will be automatically checked).

I think this is a very promising move and hope that it supports the reduction of students’ cost of living and is delivered as seamlessly as it sounds like it could be. Of course, there could be enhancements to make this more equitable – some kind of means-testing to ensure that the policy targets lower-income students and addressing the root causes of high accommodation costs – but overall, there’s a lot here for other governments to learn from.