Some students are graduating with debts of between £40,000-£60,000 (Dh242,735-Dh363,993). How did they spend it, and was it worth it?
Scott Heath, Imperial College London. Debt: £34,500
So students spend their money on partying and don't open the bedroom curtains until midday? Scott Heath's story might convince you otherwise. He worked in the college lab from nine to five almost every day, wrote up research reports in the evening, then spent his weekends behind the counter at Argos.
His "partying" spend was down to just £10 a week last year, yet his debt is now approaching £35,000, compared with the £20,000-£25,000 common among most graduates this year.
It didn't help that his university, Imperial, probably the most highly regarded science and research institution in the country, is slap in the centre of Kensington, the priciest location in Britain's priciest city.
Heath was recently voted in as Imperial's students' union president for 2011-12, and top of his agenda is the battle to keep down accommodation costs.
Costly accommodation
"What we've seen is that Imperial tends to knock down the older-style halls, then replace them with hotel-style accommodation. Some now cost upwards of £220 a week for undergraduates and £260 for postgraduates. Rich international students can afford that, but it's very tough on others."
Heath, who studied chemistry and management, is from a relatively low-income single-parent family in Nantwich, Cheshire. He obtained a bursary worth £1,000 a year from Imperial, and got a shared room in his first year for £85 a week, one of the cheapest deals at the university.
He was determined not to have to ask his mother for money, so went job-hunting as soon as he arrived in London. Argos paid £13 an hour on Sundays, which he felt was good money, but says working both days on the weekend hit his studies.
"You're expected to write lab reports at weekends, so it really didn't happen. My life was just too hectic. I stopped working such hours at the end of my first year and would advise other students to work at most one day at the weekends."
He worked for the college's alumni telethon, and did outreach in London schools under the Exscitec mentoring programme.
"I was working with students aged 11-18 around schools in London and loved it. And I got paid for it."
Heath says he's one of very few students at Imperial who worked externally throughout term to earn extra cash. "Most just work in the summer months, with some getting well-paid internships at investment banks."
Steep rents in London took most of his cash. In his second year, his shared accommodation above a shop in west London cost £520 a month, and over the four years of his course, his total rent bill was more than £17,300.
Travel was his surprise cost. "I didn't really factor it in. I thought I'd cycle everywhere, but it wasn't practical. So I had to pay for a travelcard at around £60 to £70 a month."
But his high debts have not left him in despair, and nor does he feel that students should be put off coming to a place such as Imperial because of the costs. "A lot of my friends in the north would not apply to a university in London because they thought it would be so expensive. But at least at Imperial there are lots of grants and bursaries, and some people will actually be better off under the new system.
No up-front costs
"People have to remember that there are no actual up-front costs of going to university. You only pay it off when you are earning. I'm not going to get someone knocking on the door demanding it back tomorrow. If I don't earn enough, then I won't pay. When the NUS says that people can't afford degrees, I find it rather cringeworthy."
Jennifer Isaakson, Goldsmiths, London; then London School of Economics. Debt: £40,000
Searching out free food thrown into skips by the sandwich chains and doing paid medical experiments are just two of the more desperate measures that Isaakson has taken to survive as a student. At times she has stitched together three different low-paid jobs on top of her university studies to help pay her way. Recently she has been working in the student union shop, on the library's IT desk and in the print shop.
Having to work long hours on top of her studying has left her frustrated and angry. "You can end up just doing what's necessary for your course, not the extra studying you'd like to do. At LSE there's quite a few of the international rich who can spend their whole time reading. I know people whose parents are multimillionaires. But I have to work long hours, eat out of skips and do medical experiments, and risk getting lower grades as a result."
Estranged from her parents, Isaakson has no one she can go running to for a top-up. "I managed to get a £5,000 scholarship [to do an MA] and I wouldn't have been able to survive without it at LSE," she said.
One reason her debts are so high is that she abandoned her first course after one year, at Leeds University, because she felt it wasn't up to scratch. "I'm glad I moved, even with the cost," she says. She switched to Goldsmiths in London, where she studied media and communications.
Her rent in Leeds was £250 a month, but in London it has never been less than £450 a month. Yes, paid work is more easily available in London, she says, but the wages don't match the extra cost of living. "You can find a job in London on £7-something an hour compared to, say, £6 an hour in Leeds, but it doesn't make up for what you pay in rent and transport."
Protests against high fees
When protests against the new fees structure erupted in London last year, Isaakson was among those at the heart of the confrontation in Millbank. She says she wasn't involved in violent action and wasn't "kettled", but the experience has left her nervous about the police. But despite the new £9,000 tuition fees, she encourages school students to go to university.
"LSE is clearly a very good place to study. Going to university does mean you have more opportunities. But I don't think going to university should be about getting on to the jobs treadmill but instead about developing yourself as an adult and developing your ideas. Unfortunately, a lot of people are now paralysed by the prospect of very high debts."
In the longer term Isaakson wants to become an academic, which means that she'll almost certainly have to do a PhD. "I'd like to do a PhD, but they have cut funding for places. And there are very few jobs going in academia. We seem to be dismantling higher education."
Angharad Mead, King's College London. Debt: £42,000
After five years at university, Mead, 23, has £42,000 of debt, the result of going to university in London and changing her degree course after the first year.
Mead started her studies in French at King's in 2006, but after a year and a term she realised that it wasn't the subject for her. "I think 18 is a bit young to decide what course you want to do in some cases. There wasn't a lot of advice, I thought you could only study one of your A-level subjects at university."
After taking a temping job for eight months, she started a new degree at King's, this time in English language and communications.She funded her degree through a combination of £6,000 per year in loans, as well as large overdrafts from the bank and a bit of help from her parents. She however is aware that the next generation to begin university won't be so lucky.
"My brother is 15... I don't know if my parents are going to be able to support him like they supported me as it's just going to cost so much more..."
