Everybody knows that students are savvy bargain hunters – Poundland and Primark are student meccas, and unions know that nothing draws a crowd faster than the promise of free food, or booze, or both. But where is it necessary to scrimp and save? StuRents has investigated university costs of living across the country.
The Essentials
London is infamous for its high university costs of living: the average London student pays something in the order of £287 a week for essentials like accommodation, food, study materials and travel. Meanwhile students at universities like Leicester pay just a fraction of this weekly sum (£167 a week). Whilst students in the capital receive an additional maintenance grant from the government, which gives them up to £2,196 more each year than those studying elsewhere; this is not accounted for in other universities with almost equally high living costs.
For instance, undergrads at Oxford University (£273 a week) and Sussex University in Brighton (£263) are not automatically eligible for any extra grants (as say Imperial or Kings are), and thus are effectively given the same amount of money as students from the University of Nottingham (£182 per week) and Bristol (£199 a week), despite having to pay almost £5,200 a year more.
The Accommodation Situation
As you may expect the price of accommodation means that London is definitely the most expensive place for students to live. According to new research London students have to pay an average of £202.40 per person per week (pppw) for their rooms. London is then followed in the expensive stakes by Aberdeen (£120.22pppw), Cambridge (£111.02pppw) and the aforementioned Oxford (£102.50).
The disparity between the higher end prices and the prices at the lower end is even more shocking. Students living in Stockton in the north east pay only £50.84 a week – that’s just over a quarter of the weekly rent that London students have to pay. Students in nearby Middlesbrough pay only £59.77pppw as well and over in Preston students pay an average of only £64.10pppw.
But the high prices in London don’t tell the whole story. While it’s undeniable that London students are pressed hardest when it comes to affording accommodation, the research also shows that they get a relatively good deal when it comes to the prices paid by non-students. In fact, London students get accommodation at a 32.4% discount to non-students who pay an average of £299.40pppw to live in the same areas of the city. The same can be said for Oxford students who are actually getting a discount of 32.6% on their expensive accommodation and students in Reading, who are getting a massive 39.2% discount.
On the other hand, students at Loughborough might think they are getting a good deal paying £80.21pppw for accommodation, but non-students only pay an average of £58.94pppw in the same areas – that’s a 36.08% premium, just for being a student. Other unfortunate students include those at Durham who are charged a premium of 31.8% for private accommodation and Lincoln students who pay at a premium of 27.6%, despite paying relatively cheap prices compared to cities like London.
Premium London
While the average student may be getting accommodation at a discount, for some students in London budgeting is not an issue at all. For example, these studios in Bloomsbury come equipped with four-poster beds, cleaning services, concealed kitchens and flat-screen TVs – all for £2000 a month – whilst this 5-bed fully-furnished apartment off Baker Street is equally swanky, and boasts open-plan rooms and king-sized beds.
Yet with most of us students scrounging together our Dominoes vouchers and only ever being able to contemplate Pizza Express on a Wednesday, who exactly is living in these Edwardian maisonettes, designer complexes and castles? One common answer is international students, whose share of the rental sector increased from 12% to 29% between 2006 and 2012. Peter Wetherell, managing director of one of the most prestigious estate agents in Mayfair, suggested that many ‘students in the West End originate from very wealthy, privileged families from the Middle East, Asia, US, Russia and India, whose families want them to be in secure and luxurious ‘home from home’ accommodation.’
Rest assured though that the more pricey accommodation options are still only chosen by a minority – and most students continue to take refuge in their railcards, discounts, and frequent trips to Costco.