The phrase “cost of living crisis” conjures an image of families struggling to feed their children and keep them warm this winter. However, there is another demographic currently absent from discussion of this emergency, despite half of them already being forced to cut back on food spending: university students.
Most had an unprecedented end to their school years, studying remotely through a pandemic that defined not only A-levels and other final exams but their transition to university – the so-called best years of their lives. On top of all this, they now have to grapple with a financial crisis.
The situation is harder still for working-class students, who are already grossly under-represented at top universities. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Sutton Trust found that the access rate for disadvantaged students was the lowest at the country’s most elite institutions.
This statistic is one that I am painfully aware of – I often joked to my friends that I was the token working-class student at our university. However, while I was offered a bursary for low-income students, my younger sister was not. In her three years of studying, she has been forced to access her university’s hardship fund three times. The fund required her to submit bank statements to prove she genuinely needed the money – and justify her every transaction.
Students have worked alongside their studies since long before this cost of living crisis. But, while having a part-time job can teach you valuable skills, it is important to maintain work-study balance – working too many hours can negatively impact one’s studies, and lead to burnout. Many universities recommend working a maximum of 15 hours a week. Despite this, one study revealed that 9% of students work 21-30 hours a week and 11% work more than 31 hours.
Clearly, this is unsustainable – but for some it is unavoidable. Working part-time jobs is the only way to keep afloat. One Birmingham student, who has worked throughout their degree and will graduate next summer, told me that, with no financial support from their parents, they have had to cut back on everyday non-essentials, social events and even replacing fallen-apart shoes to ensure they can keep a roof over their head. For my sister, who also graduated this year, a job wasn’t a want, but a need – working alongside her studies was the only way she could afford her rent. As prices rise, even these hours may not be enough: as of June, 11% of students were already using food banks.
And although working-class students will be more affected, those from the middle class are facing financial struggles too. Many rely on their parents for contributions towards living costs to get by, which also presents a crisis for students’ families. In a survey by an accommodation provider carried out in March, 73% of parents and 66% of students said that they were “extremely worried” about the cost of living at university. The same study found that 36% of parents are struggling to financially support themselves as well as their children at university, and have had to turn to other income streams: 10% of parents have taken out bank loans, and 3% have re-mortgaged their house in order to make ends meet and support their children.
There comes the point where one has to question whether achieving a good degree grade is even realistic for those forced to work long hours to make ends meet. It’s sure to put some students off applying for university entirely. For many working-class students, maximum student finance loans are the only way they can afford to go to university. Yet with loans not seeing an increase to match the rapidly rising cost of living, the dream of going to university will become unattainable for many, purely because of their financial background.
I would like to think the government will not continue to sit back and watch this disaster happen. But the disastrous mini-budget doesn’t bode well. Let’s not forget that this is the same party that has signed off ruthless increases in tuition fees – or that the schools minister, Jonathan Gullis, recently declared his “biggest fear” to be private schools losing their charitable status. I would say mine is that other working-class students won’t have the same access to higher education that I did.
Students should not be expected to jeopardise their education to, paradoxically, fund their education, and neither should it be necessary for parents to sacrifice their own financial security to support them. It’s time for student finance loans to be increased in line with inflation, or else the government must provide a tailored cost of living support package for students (as petitioned for by the NUS), similar to the one that 8 million families have already received.
On a human level, the government cannot sit back and force students to choose between studying and eating. On a social level, the government must urgently put more money behind education. After all, these students will be one day running the country – investing in their education is investing in our future.
Chelsie Henshaw is a journalist
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