As students return to university campuses across the UK, many face financial challenges that force them to make difficult choices. One of them, Tianna Hunkins, a first-year student at the University of Manchester, is delighted with the opportunity. For the 26/27 academic year, Hunkins has a maintenance loan of £4,915. This number is nowhere near enough to meet her basic financial obligations. Her annual rent is £7,932, leaving her with a £976 gap that she has to cover with zero-hours part-time work.
The maintenance loan, which is designed to help students cover living costs while pursuing their education, has become increasingly inadequate. New research reveals that first-year students are burdened by costly requirements. Sadly, the maximum annual maintenance loan only meets around 54% of those expenses. Students such as Hunkins now goth their work uniforms to lectures. Often, this transition occurs as they are juggling academics and employment.
Hunkins juggles her studies with an intensive part-time job, which she estimates will bring in around £6,500 this year. All in all, her annual income is £19,597 when you include support from her parents and her maintenance loan. Even with that she is just barely able to get by.
With housing insecurity as another common obstacle, fellow cohort member Ava Wylde found herself hustling in a corner store during the school year to cover unpaid rent. She tells us that her maintenance loan doesn’t even totally cover half of all of her costs. She has to juggle the expense for her train fares. This will include her own journey from her family home in Southampton to Durham University.
This is why Faith Webb, a first-year university student, has decided to move back home and commute to her university in Manchester rather than living there. She mentions the financial cost as the first reason for the choice. Webb visits students who are sitting in classrooms wearing the clothes from their jobs. It’s a scary warning about the economic stresses that millions of students are experiencing at this very moment.
“My commute will cost me around £2,300 for the year,” Webb stated. And the reason I ask them is because I’m paying all this money to do this. She has an understanding of the tiredness that such long days of travel and study can cause. She’s concerned that her students will lose motivation so soon after their early start.
“It’s tough because if I’ve been away from home since 06:00, I wouldn’t really have any motivation,” she explained.
The impact of the financial burden goes far beyond these three students. Josh Anderton, a musician and artist, finds it challenging to get by and they have to pay £8,760 in yearly rent. A recent survey from Save the Student exposes the shocking lack of financial support. The average maintenance loan leaves students unable to afford their living costs by £502 per month.
According to Prof. Andy Long, these financial burdens present a significant level of stress on students. These students are already contending with the pressures of balancing work and school. He added that students today deal with pressures and stressors that their counterparts had the luxury of not worrying about.
“An additional burden that students having the traditional university experience simply don’t have to deal with,” he remarked.
In recognition of these issues faced by many, Skills Minister Jacqui Smith recently recognized the new reality facing students today. She stated that the government “recognises that too many students are facing real financial hardship.” Smith added that the government will “soon set out how we plan to improve access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Hunkins y f rustration with the absence of financial support through student loans. “I wouldn’t put myself through this stress [of a job alongside studying] if I didn’t have to,” she said. She further emphasized the impact of working on her academic opportunities: “One of my friends got an opportunity to do a legal internship through this paralegal event that I wasn’t able to go to because I was at work.”
For most students, like Hunkins, Wylde and Webb, the incoming class of 2023 can expect an uphill battle against the costs of attending a higher education institution. These challenges affect their academic success and overall experience at the university. They must then overcome many hurdles on the road. They passionately await improved fiduciary relief that would enable them to concentrate more on their education rather than dividing their time between several jobs merely to survive.
