Research says your maintenance loans should have run out by now 

VoucherCodes.co.uk has found that UK students spend £2,115 before they set foot in a lecture.

The survey of 1,500 students and recent graduates showed that students spend over a thousand pounds on pre-university essentials and a further thousand on Freshers’ Week.

The average student will spend £212 on alcohol during Freshers’, and an additional £100.28 for events tickets and entry fees to clubs, according to their research.

To try to make up for the pizza and Jaegerbomb-fuelled week, 40 percent of students will fork out for gym memberships before the second week. Those surveyed reported that new clothes, takeaways and supermarket food come in at another 100 pounds each during the first week of term.

67 percent of new and returning students source their back-to-university funds from parents and 69 percent draw heavily from their maintenance loan.

The survey suggests that UK student maintenance loans last just half the time that they should. 78 percent spent the first installment of their maintenance loan in six weeks, leaving more than six weeks of term to go with no government support.

This financial situation impacts student performance, with 18 percent reporting that they are distracted in lectures as a direct result and 17 percent unable to buy the course materials they need.

Students’ health is also affected as 14 percent say that they have resorted to skipping meals to save money and one in ten reporting insomnia due to money worries.

To make up for the financial shortfall 57 percent of students rely on their overdraft and 60 percent fall back on their parents for extra cash. More than 65 percent of full-time students get a part-time job.

Part-time work is said to come into conflict with studies, with 15 percent admitting that their part time job leaves them with insufficient time to study and 12 percent regularly skipping lectures to work instead or being too tired after a late shift to make it into university for the next morning.