This article explores the changing attitudes towards student accommodation in higher education in the United Kingdom since the end of the Second World War. In the first part of this period there was a firm assumption, in universities and teacher training colleges, that the accommodation of students in or close to their university or college, preferably in association with at least some academics, was the preferred strategy. Latterly, however, with the lowering of the age of majority and the massification of higher education provision, practice has shifted towards both a greater reliance on the private sector in providing student accommodation, and a more entrepreneurial approach on the part of universities and colleges in managing their own student accommodation.