Rising rental costs leads to students struggling to pay bills

Most students leaving home to study at university will spend their first year living on campus. This is accommodation on university grounds, with students sometimes sharing a room, but often living by themselves. In their second year many students turn to renting, looking for a flat nearby. They will normally look to share with friends, and perhaps seek out a four or five bedroom property close to the university.

As with those struggling to afford to purchase a property, or to pay their rent, so too are students finding it increasingly difficult to raise enough funds to pay for their student accommodation. A recent survey commissioned by Natwest has found that many students are facing real financial hardship, with many not having enough money for study supplies or even the most basic of amenities.

At the moment students receive a means-tested allowance from the government. Though this system is designed to prevent any financial worries, and allow students to focus on their studies, almost half of the 3,604 students polled (43%) said they had no money left by the end of the semester, while almost a third (32%) said it had been necessary to dip into their overdraft to meet the costs of their rent and bills. Obviously something is failing here, with so many students facing these money worries. I feel this may be partially down to university life presenting many students with the fresh reality of having to deal with bill payments and direct debits. Many will never have faced these challenges before, and haven`t had to make a regular bill payment outside of their monthly mobile phone contract.

It was certainly like that for me - I had been lucky enough not to have had to worry about rent or utility bills while in college, and I remember it being something of a `reality check` when I was renting during my second year at university. I was so naive that I hardly realised that water and electricity were things one had to pay for. I now believe that basic financial management should be taught in school - just a few hours a week, educating students about savings and borrowings, credit cards and rent. I fear too many students are fleeing the nest at 18 ill equipped to deal with financial matters.

Over two thirds of students rely upon their maintenance loan to get them through university. The average amount is £509 a month - a figure that may seem quite generous, before you realise that this has to cover rent, bills, and food. Since this specific type of loan was introduced in 2012, factoring in the effects of inflation means it has fallen almost every year, with students now receiving £8,944 in the academic year 2019 to 2020.

In conjunction with this fall in the value of the loan, rental prices have been rising. The Natwest survey found that since 2018, rental prices have increased by around £20 a month; and in major cities such as London, the growth in rent has been astronomical over recent years.

The vice president for welfare at the National Union of Students, Eva Crossan Jory, has disclosed that the Natwest survey concurs with its own `poverty commission,` which was published in April of this year, a report that suggested that very many students were finding it extremely difficult to cope financially throughout the last years of their course.

Eva Jory said that `more and more students are balancing university work and caring responsibilities, and often student`s parents are hit the hardest through unfair funding systems. Central government should address the way in which student support is calculated to ensure that it takes into account rises in the cost of living for learners.`

Some cynical characters might say there is no cause for concern here, that students have always had it too easy, and they are lucky to receive any financial aid at all. What we need to remember is that, if we wish to produce a higher educated workforce, we need to ensure that students have the requisite time and energy to actually focus on their studies. Ultimately the education they receive, and the degree they earn at the end of their courses, will (one certainly hopes) be for the good of the country itself.