Students and the continuous battle of financial stress
Students across the UK are struggling, facing extreme challenges such as not having enough money to fund their weekly food shopping as the cost of rent increases and the inflation issue happening within the UK. For some students the stress is making sure they have enough money for the whole month rather than the exams itself.
Inflation and the cost of living is increasing a lot of affecting students’ day to day lives. Upon visiting Bedford University to investigate what impacts financial struggles do to students. Dawud Ibrahim, a second year Business studies student has said his concerns explaining that “having to attend lectures whilst not eating much has definitely been difficult” and describes university daily essentials as being “too high” in costs where he sometimes had to stretch £30 for the whole week just to pay other expenses. He questions whether universities have enough facilities to provide care since he believes this issue “will continue to grow”.
Imaged sourced from the University of Bedfordshire website
According to Save the Student, they conducted a survey on how inflation affects students where they concluded that 41% thought about dropping out due to the stress of having financial struggle and according to the National union of Students over 90% of students in 2023 have had a major decline in mental health. The organisation further explains how many students are having to work overtime just to have enough money to live for the week.
Dawud Ibrahim shares his stance on methods which can help the situation where he said “the government should be the ones responsible for paying for accommodation since the main aspect of being at university is to live a fulfilling life” since he believes cutting this area of costs will allow students to have extra money to get essentials. In addition, he said, “these sorts of methods will need to be implemented soon as the years go on, and inflation will rise” since every year costs of daily essentials are being more expensive.
To combat these financial challenges and obstacles, the government has created support systems, such as increasing the maintenance loan systems correlated to the relativity of inflation. Also, the tuition cost is being kept at £9535 per year. Bursaries programs are being introduced to those in low-income households. However, Dawud said, “there isn’t enough systems implemented to support everyone” showing more must be done to support students.