Students are being forced to stay in hotels or defer for a year due to a chronic shortage of student accommodation.
Undergraduates hoping to move to Bristol, York, Edinburgh and Exeter are among those on the verge of deferring, even though their courses are not full.
The University of Bristol is putting some students in hotels and seeking accommodation in Bath, and the NUS-USI student union in Northern Ireland said students were being left with nowhere to live and others forced to move into crowded, substandard housing.
Others have been offered grants and other incentives to defer for a year.
