Five days a week, the sky is pitch black when George, a first-year student at Liverpool John Moores University, wakes up for work. No buses are available at that time, so he leaves the house at 2.45am to walk the 3.7 miles (6km) to work for his 4am shift.
He has a quick sit-down before he begins a four-hour shift collecting items around the supermarket for delivery. Depending on whether he can afford the £2 fare that day, he will get a bus, or retrace his steps back to campus. Then it is time to go to lectures.
Unsurprisingly, he feels exhausted, and sometimes struggles to stay awake in his morning lectures. “It leaves me tired and unable to concentrate. It’s hard studying along with work, but the main reason I’m here is to achieve my degree,” he says, explaining that he struggled to find other work with enough hours closer to campus. “I drink as much coffee as I can.”
The 29-year-old from Cardiff receives £11,720 between his maintenance loan and a grant from the Welsh government. But after paying his £188 rent each week for a studio flat in university accommodation – the mature student was reluctant to share with hard-partying students a decade younger for a slightly lower rent – he still needs to work 20 hours a week to make ends meet.
“The figures speak for themselves. There’s no question – you’ll have to get a job,” he says. “People always say students’ favourite food is rice and pasta, but I didn’t realise it would be rations.”
