The New Youth Forum issued the call after a survey it conducted this month showed 88 percent of 301 local university students see a serious shortfall in hostel places. Only 8percent held opposite views.

According to government statistics, there was a shortfall of more than 3,000 places from the 30,900 hostel places required during the last academic year.

Lucia Lee Yin-sin, committee member of New Youth Forum, urged the government to allocate more resources for new hostels to solve the problem.

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Only 13 percent felt that the government has already allocated sufficient resources to tackle the problem while more than 75 percent disagreed.

Almost 90 percent of those surveyed said that a continuous increase in non- local students affects the locals' chances of landing a hostel place.

The percentage of non-local students in universities has jumped from 10 percent to 20 percent, with the majority from the mainland.

In most universities, students' hostel applications are assessed according to the proximity of their homes and their involvement in campus activities.

"With addresses in the mainland, non-local students can easily beat local ones in scores," Lee said. "It's unfair."

Sixty-nine percent of students also think that the new 3+3+4 education reform will only make the situation worse.

By 2012, some 2,100 more places will be needed and if non-local students reach their maximum quota of 20 percent, an additional 6,500 will be required, according to the government.

Forty-two percent of respondents have never lived in university hostels, with 33 percent "wishing to live on campus very much." Twenty-four percent said they want a hostel place because they live far from campus.

"It's really exhausting and time- consuming to be commuting an hour or two from home to university and vice versa," said committee member Tang Win-man, a Science and Technology University student who lives in Tsing Yi.