Money advice for English undergraduate students

studentqs

I am a final year student and have one piece of advice for those starting university:

Do not save your money or be too sensible with it. Spend it as soon as you get it and you will be rewarded with more.

This may sound a strange thing to hear, but it is based on my university experience. I am extremely sensible with my money and unlike many people do not spend my student loans on a PS3 or new clothes, but I actually use it for food and accommodation. Becuase I have been sensible with my money I am not as deep into my overdraft as many of my friends.

Most universities offer an 'access to learning fund,' which anybody can apply to once they are in university and see that they are short of cash. So, of course, being a student and poor, I applied to it. So did many of my friends (whom, generally, are terrible with money.)

The result: I was not given further funding because I had managed my money well and was not deemed a top priority. My friends, however, were awarded with between £1000 and £3000 each - all of this because they had spent their money on enjoying themselves while I had been carefully saving. Given that you can apply to this fund for every year that you attend university, I refer to my earlier statment: spend your money, have fun, then ask for more.

Of course this is entirely my fault, if you are sensible with your money you could always hide it in a family members bank or under the duvet and apply for the money telling them that you've spent it. Unfortunately I was honest while asking for government money - I will not make the same mistake again.

So I leave uni with £25k of debt, the government has done nothing to ease this burden, so - purely out of principles you understand - I will be leaving this country to live in a country in the sun and never pay back that money!

Hope this post causes at least one person to enjoy their uni experience a little bit more!

Indie_Kid

You know you have to pay back the money from access to learning fund?

whitfreak

Access to learning can be a grant (i.e. doesnt have to be paid back)as well. Each university sets its own rules, and your university must have really lax rules for you to get so annoyed by this.

At my university the access to learning money (£50k a year spread over a University of 10,000 students... do the math) is renamed the Hardship Fund. You needed a raft of paperwork to show hardship and show that it was likely you'd dropout or have your academic work badly damaged to get a grant out of it. Proof of bills, proof of income and so on are required. And if you were likely to drink it away or waste it they'd stagger payments and require that you started to budget, sort your drinking problem etc.


And not that I like replying to trolls, but if you break the terms of your loans then you are setting yourself up for a world of pain should you ever return to British soil. Presuming you are a British have family here etc, is it really worth the risk over a debt thats so cheap and gets written off in 25 years anyway.

The_One_Who

Hardship grants or loans (are these the same as access to learning?) require you to provide previous bank statements and account for any and all expenditure, at least that is the case at my university. They do not just hand it out like sweeties.

As for leaving the country, you do that and you won't feel very welcome back here, especially when they catch up with you.