Expensive Student Living :: Wessex Scene Online

Expensive Student Living

8th December 2007
Sophie Wright

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Student life encompasses many aspects, all of which are tethered to budgets and discounts. This is following the ethos that if you’re a student, it is already assumed that your purse strings are tighter than the average civilian.

We spend three to seven years working hard so that during this time spent in intellectual exertion, the kind people at the Student Loan Company, lend us some pennies to pay for important things like utility bills, food, books and that all important feature of university life, socialising. But how far does our loan take us here in Southampton?

A study produced by push.co.uk looked at the cost of student housing, groceries and drinks to measure how each university’s living costs compare to the national average. Push is the leading independent website for university applicants. Its study highlighted the differences between different universities living costs, for example Southampton’s average beer price is Ł1.64, the average rent per week is Ł67.56 and the average debt after three years at university is Ł2,555. In comparison to a Northern university Leeds and the London School of Economics where the average price of beer is Ł1.70 in Leeds and Ł1.89 in London, the average rent is Ł62.97 and Ł108.99 respectively and the average debt is Ł3,901 and Ł2,661. .

One cannot escape the fact that it is far cheaper to live as a student in different parts of the UK, namely welsh and northern universities such as Aberystwyth and Leeds. Unfortunately for us, Southampton falls in the southerly, pricier bracket, along with the London universities. Upon quizzing some students, I found that in spite of most people opting for their student loans; they still received a significant financial leg up from their parents or other outside donor, and most still found themselves indulging in the rather confused state of free money that is the student over-draft. With supermarkets in prime student locations such as our very own Portswood changing from Morrisons to Waitrose, this kind of expensive lifestyle is hardly surprising.

Despite the growing number of ‘student nights’ in town, most students tend to stay in the Portswood – Highfield comfort bubble, where prices are honed and toned to pull us in. When asked why this was, Mike, a History and Politics student said, ‘towns really expensive, and far away’. The city is hardly geographically remote but is still very much considered a more expensive and less convenient alternative to what is already at our doorstep.

Student living is always going to be on a budget, and it is the nature of our spending ways that our funds run a little low before loan day comes. It is the fabled ‘beans on toast diet’ and ‘pound a pint’ deals that give us our generic ‘poor’ status, however students shouldn’t have to constantly feel like they are scraping the barrel.