University students in England are left with the equivalent of 50p a week to live on from their loans after paying for accommodation, the cost of which has soared by nearly 15% over the last two years, research has revealed.
Maintenance loans, which students take out on top of tuition fee loans to pay for living costs, are now almost entirely wiped out by rent alone, according to a report by the student accommodation charity Unipol and the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi).
With the average annual student rent in England now £7,566 and the average maintenance loan expected to be £7,590 this year, the authors calculate that students are left with just £24 a year to cover their living costs, which works out at 50p a week.
Even in the case of the maximum maintenance loan, which only the poorest students are entitled to, the proportion eaten up by rent is still more than three-quarters (76%), when it is generally accepted that rent should account for no more than 30% of income. In many cases parents are unable to help.
The report, published on Thursday, focuses on student rental markets in 10 major regional university cities outside London and Edinburgh and found that students in Bristol pay the highest average annual rent outside the capital, up by 9% over the past two years to £9,200.
Exeter is not far behind at £8,559 (+16%), followed by Glasgow, which has seen the biggest rise in rent over the two-year period, up more than 20% to £7,548. Rents are highest in the cities where there is a shortage of student accommodation.
Large rent increases were also seen in Nottingham (up 15% to £8,427), Leeds (also up almost 15% to £7,627) and Bournemouth (up 11% to £7,396). Liverpool, Cardiff and Sheffield were the most affordable of those surveyed, with lower rents and smaller annual increases.
